BEN RAMAGE
Richard Tait admits he’s learned his lesson after watching his Buddies suffer from the touchline.
The experienced left back lost his cool at Tannadice, seeing red for a reckless challenge that saw him suspended for the Saints losses against Kilmarnock and Aberdeen.
After making a goalscoring return to action against Partick Thistle on Wednesday night, he insists he won’t leave his teammates high and dry again after forcing Jim Goodwin to shuffle his defence in his absence.
Tait told Express Sport: “It’s great to be back in the team. It’s been a frustrating couple of weeks not being involved.
“But that was my own fault and it was definitely a lesson learned.
“We’ve had a lot of things go against us, covid obviously hasn’t helped and I know a lot of teams will be saying that as well.
“But I didn’t help the situation getting suspended a n d n e i t h e r d i d Joe (Shaughnessy). It’ll be nice to get a strong, settled back line again.
“Conor (McCarthy) is away on international duty but when he comes back hopefully we’ll finally all be available again.”
At the end of an underwhelming first half in which the Jags twice went close to opening the scoring, Tait’s diving header gave the Buddies a crucial lead in their Betfred Cup opener.
He insists he isn’t practising them in training, with his low effort reminscent of his opening day winner against Livingston on his debut.
He said: “I just watched the flight of the ball and attacked it.
“It’s nice to actually be in the box attacking crosses, I’ve not been up there that much in my career but I always knew I could get myself on the end of them.
“Hopefully that will continue from corners and free-kicks this season.
“I think when you play teams in lower leagues, people just expect you to win. It’s not as easy as that.
“They came out and had a right good go at us. They had a few chances where if they’d put them away it would have been a different story.
“The boys from Partick were fighting for the points just as much as we were.
“To get the goal was good, they clawed themselves back into it with their goal and then we went a bit nervy for about five, ten minutes.
“Big Jon settled us down with his goal and then we killed the game as they got tired.
“We’re glad that we’ve got that win in the end.”
Former Motherwell defender Tait had his former boss Stephen Robinson casting a beady eye over him as he scouted the Saints ahead of their league clash next week.
While he loved his time in Lanarkshire Tait insists there’ll be no split loyalty come matchday as he targets making a scoring impact once again.
Tait added: “I thought he might have been here watching because we’ve obviously got them in the league next week.
“Maybe I’ll get a wee text from him, I don’t know. I had a great time at Motherwell.
“They’re a great club and even though they did terrific in Europe I was hoping they’d get to the group stage.
“It’ll be nice to go back up against them and hopefully I can score another header!”