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Goodwin: Don’t let your standards slip

St Mirren gaffer Jim Goodwin is hoping his players can produce a repeat performance to bring home all three points from Ayrshire.

The Buddies underlined their defensive qualities against St Johnstone with their fourth clean sheet at home this season, but also produced the goods in the final third to bag their first win in six games.

And Goodwin is demanding his players use last Saturday’s win as a marker when they travel to Kilmarnock this weekend.

“Hopefully we can build on that performance and result,” he told Express Sport.

“It ’ s not a case that one individual pulled us through the game. It was a real collective effort and performance. The way they managed the game in the second half was a credit to them.

“We have a meeting every Monday after the game and go through the positives and negatives. There’s always plenty of both.

“Once it’s done that game is gone, there’s no point thinking about it anymore.

“After that we’re focusing on the next game against Kilmarnock.

“The application there needs to be exactly the same as it was against St Johnstone.”

The manager was delighted for the fans after the win, particularly given it consigned St Johnstone to the bottom of the Premiership table instead of St Mirren.

And Goodwin believes the win was just reward for the players who have put the hours in on the training ground.

He said: “The players deserve a lot of credit for how organised and professional they have been. I’m delighted for the supporters but also for the players because their hard work has paid off.

“A little bit of magic from Jon Obika managed to break the deadlock and then it was a really well worked team goal for the second.

“It was good build-up and then a fantastic ball in from Paul McGinn. Danny Mullen’s finish was really good and he made it look a lot easier than it actually was.

“It was everything we’d talked about in training, in terms of getting the full backs overlapping and the timings of the runs.

“Obika makes a really good run across the near post that people maybe wouldn’t notice, but if Jon doesn’t make that run then that doesn’t open up the middle of the goal for Danny.

“There were a lot of positives to take from that goal and the overall team performance.”

Goodwin expects the points will keep piling up if the players can keep up their high standards at Ralston.

He added: “I have got huge admiration for the players for how they apply themselves in training every day.

“There’s never an occasion when I need to gee anybody up or raise my voice to try and get training to the standards I want. They just do it which is brilliant.”