St Johnstone are showing Dundee and Dundee United a clean pair of heels.
Traditionally less well resourced than either city club, their recent run of seven straight away wins is evidence of outstanding work.
Ten points ahead of Dundee, while United trail 21 points in their wake, the benefits of Saints’ shrewd husbandry are in plain view.
There is finally some stability at Dens Park, while United are trying to rediscover theirs under Mixu Paatelainen. However, it is the Perth club while embracing an ethos of canny housekeeping, which has stealthily assembled a team with character and commitment.
Traditionally the Dundee pair was the strongest of the trio, but football gives you what you work for, not what you think you are entitled to.
Dundee, despite slipping form wise are still surely on the road to top league security. United face a real scrap to avoid relegation and the new boss would have benefited from being brought in sooner to give him a fighting chance.
The McDiarmid Park side meantime, from their lofty fourth place in the league and Europe in their sights again, peer contentedly down at the neighbours, who’ve often regarded them disdainfully.
St Johnstone is a model for both Dundee clubs to emulate. Living within their means hasn’t meant living without ambition. The league table proves it.
Award has had its day
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year jamboree is past its sell by date.
A bit like showing the annual rowing and rugby jousts between Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the award has had its day.
The row over whether Tyson Fury should be dropped from the list of nominees masks the issue of just what the honour is supposed to be for. The point has been well made and not just by the boxer himself, that he has arguably much more personality than most, if not all, of the others on the list.
Granted, it might not be the kind of personality you would want to take round to your old auntie’s for tea, but there is no doubt that he isn’t short of an opinion or twenty.
Therein, lies the main problem. Are we recognising sporting endeavour, or the ability to charm or to be charmless, or is it truly a contest to see which athlete has performed the greater feat, with more skill and ability than another.
If it is to be on the basis of sporting merit, and for me that is what it must be about, then that is sufficient reason to stop the whole charade in its tracks.
Such a decision is completely arbitrary and subjective.
By what yardstick can we measure whether a boxer like Fury who potentially risks his life in the ring, is more or less worthy of an award than Greg Rutherford jumping nearly eight and a half metres in a sand pit?
How do we compare the commitment and effort involved between Chris Froome’s gruelling three-week Tour de France marathon and Andy Murray’s Davis Cup heroics?
To me, each of the athletes is magnificent and world class. Trying to decide who the top personality is, insults them all.