Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
A four-midable Saints stay in
IT’S not how you start that’s important, it’s how you finish, they say.
After a tortuous season that defied belief at times given the one that preceded it, St Johnstone have come good when it really matters.
The last 45 minutes of their 202122 campaign was their best, with four second-half goals securing the Perth club’s Premiership status.
That doesn’t mean all the things that went wrong last summer should get forgotten about.
But learning lessons as a topflight outfit is a good deal more palatable than as a Championship one.
The post-mortem into how Saints were teetering on the brink of relegation going into the final game has already begun.
But the fact that the Perth side were in deep trouble of their own making shouldn’t deny the players and management who got the playoff job done the right to feel a sense of end-of-season achievement and pride.
It was fitting that Stevie May sent them on their way – the local hero who has won three trophies and seen so many great times at McDiarmid Park.
Cammy MacPherson, Callum Hendry and Shaun Rooney were the other scorers on a night that had started worryingly and finished in a party and a lap of honour.
Typically for a season like this, Callum Davidson had to deal with a big pre-match injury blow.
Jamie McCart was ruled out as a result of delayed concussion from the head knock he sustained in the Highlands.
In came John Mahon to make just his second start since signing for Saints in January. With Theo Bair,
Jacob Butterfield, Callum Booth and Ali Crawford also missing out, the bench was two men lighter than on Friday.
Billy Dodds made four changes to his starting line-up. And it was a bold selection.
The two wide forwards who made a telling impact in the first leg comeback, Austin Samuels and Logan Chalmers, joined the duo returning from suspension, Danny Devine and Wallace Duffy, in the 11. And it was Chalmers who had the first shot of the game with only seconds on the clock – thankfully for Saints, straight at Zander Clark.
The visitors made a much better start to this contest than the last and Devine got his head to a Sean Welsh free-kick. Again Clark wasn’t tested.
Saints gradually started to enjoy a bit of territory and possession but Caley Thistle were carrying the greater first half goal threat. It