A lesson for young players

St Johnstone midfielder Liam Craig believes this season will have been a beneficial learning experience for the squad’s younger members.

Saturday’s defeat against Aberdeen means Saints will not play top six football for the first season in the last seven.

But experienced Craig said:“We’ve had a group of players here over the last few years who go toe-to-toe with everyone in the league.

“This year, there has been a transition in terms of we’ve lost a few players and there are younger boys coming in.

“But it’s up to the senior players to get that mentality into everyone that comes in the door that we’re hard to beat and we earn the right to play.

“Too many times, we’ve not done that. Looking forward, there are a lot of younger boys who have come in the door and there’s a lot of quality there.

“They are going to gain a lot of experience with the amount of minutes they’ve had.”

Craig is fully aware that standards dropped below what is expected at Pittodrie at the weekend.

“It’s disappointing because we usually come up and give a good account of ourselves,”he said. “The three games against Aberdeen this season haven’t been good enough.

“When you look at the last three games – Dundee, Hibs and Hamilton – we’ve not been making mistakes.

“We’ve been more like ourselves, hard to beat and carrying a threat going the other way.

“On Saturday it wasn’t like that at all and was back to how we’ve been too often this season. Ultimately that’s why we’re in the bottom six.”