JUST TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

Now penalty ace McGinn says he’ll never take Premiership survival for granted

Defender Paul McGinn hopes St Mirren make the most of their sliding doors moment.

As he stepped up to hit his crucial play- off penalty against Dundee United in May, McGinn knew a miss could have helped consign his team to Championship football.

Instead, after 120 gruelling minutes he held his nerve after Peter Pawlett missed the Arabs’ opening spot kick to net.

The rest is history.

The 28-year-old is determined to help Saints push on after a stuttering start to the season, beginning today against Hamilton.

“It could have been a different atmosphere around the club if the play-off penalties went a different way,” McGinn admits.

“It had been a stressful week in the lead up to the play-off games and by the time it came to hit the penalty, after 120 minutes, I was knackered.

“I just wanted to get it out of the way and thankfully it went in.

“That was a massive moment for us, not just as a team but the whole club.

“If we won, we stayed up, if we lost we were going down.

“It was huge and thankfully we scored the penalties to stay up.

“Now we want to build some momentum.

“If you start losing games then you can get into a rut and we don’t want that.

“When you win though it keeps the positivity of the place and we want to do that.

“There is more pressure on us, after losing the last two games, that we go and win this game now.”

St Mirren looked destined to pick up at least a point last weekend in Dingwall until a last gasp sucker punch.

McGinn believes he and his teammates need to learn to box clever to ensure they keep picking up the points their performances deserve.

He said: “The last two games against Livingston and Ross County were frustrating and they are matches we should never have lost.

“We were sloppy and we have to make sure we don’t keep talking about hard luck stories.

“We have to be more ruthless. “With a minute to go in Dingwall, which is a hard place to go, we should have seen it out for the point and got back down the road.

“But we lost a bad goal and came away with nothing. When the gaffer was playing I can guarantee he would have fouled the boy on the halfway line and we would have got a point.

“He doesn’t get us to take people out at training or anything, but he did say we should have got a point.”

McGinn added: “It comes with experience I suppose. Sometimes you have to take the booking for the boys.

“You would rather be on a booking than a goal down.

“At times we have been too nice in games and it has cost us.”