St Johnstone boss Steve Lomas wants to see his side hit the ground running when their post-split games get under way on Sunday.
The Saints squad were back at training at Stirling University, but will play a closed doors game against Kilmarnock to try and hone their craft ahead of the weekend’s crucial post-split opener at home to Ross County.
The Killie friendly comes hard on the heels of Thursday’s closed-doors defeat to Aberdeen, which may have ended 6-1 but gave some of Saints’ fringe players a much-needed run-out.
“At this stage of the season the fear is that training can become a bit stale and I suspect the lads would rather have 45 minutes of competitive football with a wee bit edge,” Lomas commented.
“All season the mindset of the players has been excellent and I am sure that will continue into the last five games with so much riding on them.
“There is a challenge here to claim third place and Europe and that is a huge incentive for us. Hopefully the players will see the challenge and they’ll rise to it.
“First up we have Ross County in Perth. They will be wanting to go above us and there is a lot riding on the game itself let alone getting up the league table.”
Saints are hoping to qualify for Europe for the second successive season and the Scottish Cup semi-final results at the weekend ultimately made things simple for the Perth side in qualification terms at least.
Fourth place in the SPL would have been enough to make the Europa League if the Scottish Cup was won by the team finishing second or third.
However, Celtic’s presence in the cup final, coupled with Dundee United’s defeat, means Hibs will qualify as Scottish Cup runners-up. And that means that securing third spot is now the only route left to Europa League football.
Heading into the final five fixtures of the season, Lomas has once again heaped praise on his squad for making the top six again while the likes of Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts failed to make the grade.
“If you look at the resources of other clubs, as a group I think they deserve a lot of credit,” he said.
“Let’s have it right, at this stage many of our lads are working without the safety net of contracts for next season so all credit to them for their attitude.
“What it shows you is we’ve got self-motivated players and if you ask any manager he will tell you how important it can be to have self-motivated players.
“As a group they deserve much credit for making the top six again and have shown great professionalism.
“I think if we had scored more goals we would have been a lot higher and that’s probably the one little thing that probably has held us back because defensively we have the second best defensive record in the SPL behind Celtic.”