Wright backs Saints to beat the best again as they finally end five-month winless run at home
Tommy Wright watched his struggling Saints claim their first home win in FIVE months and insisted his side are good enough to match anyone in the top flight.
Murray Davidson’s first-half double was enough to sink 10-man Staggies – and give the Perth faithful something to cheer about for the first time since they beat Hamilton at McDairmid Park in September.
Saints have moved up to eighth in the table and the gaffer challenged his side to climb even higher.
The Northern Irishman said: “It was a good performance from the players.
“We totally controlled the game and if we are going to nit pick we probably should have made more of the opportunities we had and scored more goals. Hopefully this will be the start of a wee run for us.
“Too many times at home this year we’ve lost the first goal but the crowd were good and got behind the team well.
“I think at times here when you go a goal down it’s difficult. That’s where we’ve struggled at times.
“But today we didn’t make any mistakes and defended well. When we do that we give ourselves a real platform to beat any team in this league.
“I don’t think anyone has ripped us apart this season. It’s just that we’ve made silly individual errors and far too many of them.
“But there’s enough games left and enough points on the board for us to continue to move up the table and hopefully we’ll do that.
“We are still only five points behind Motherwell with two games in hand so we’ll remain positive.”
Saints have won in each of the four games Davidson has scored in this season and Wright heaped praise on the midfielder.
He said: “You always fancy Murray when he goes a few weeks without a goal to come
in and nick one. He was excellent the whole game and was all over the park.
“He led us from the front and got us on the front foot very early on.”
After a precious point at Celtic Park last week, Saints made two changes with Scott Tanser and Chris Kane coming in to replace George Williams and Ricky Foster, who has been ruled out for the rest of the season.
Michael Gardyne was conspicuous by his absence after an X-rated video of the Staggies striker surfaced online earlier in the week but the away side made just one change from last weekend’s stalemate with Hearts as Greg Tansey came in and Mattias Kait dropped to the bench.
Both sides got off to a sluggish start but it was Saints who found the opener with their first attempt on goal in 29 minutes. Tanser’s fabulous cross to the back post found Steven MacLean and he knocked the ball down for Davidson to sweep it into the net from 10 yards.
And Davidson doubled both his and St Johnstone’s tally in 40 minutes when he curled a powerful strike towards goal from 20-yards.
County keeper Scott Fox got a hand to it but it wasn’t strong enough to keep it out as the ball nestled in the far corner.
Saints almost grabbed a third before the break when an attempted clearance from Staggies skipper Marcus Fraser managed to cannon back off his own bar from David Wotherspoon’s cross.
Wotherspoon broke forward and had the chance to tee up Davidson for his hat-trick 10 minutes after the restart but he went alone and dragged his shot wide, to the fury of the matchwinner.
Staggies’ misery was compounded six minutes from time when sub Craig Curran copped a second booking for pushing MacLean to the deck after the Saints man and Fraser got involved in a bit of handbags on the touchline.
With less than a minute left on the clock, home keeper Alan Mannus produced a great stop at close range to deny Davis Keillor-Dunn a consolation.
Then in stoppage time Liam Craig hit the side-netting when he looked certain to bag Saints’ third.
Ross County have now won just once in their last 16 outings and frustrated gaffer Owen Coyle admitted his side were second-best once again.
He said: “Normally, you will have two or three players out of sorts in a team but I’m really struggling to give out two or three pass marks.
“We never worked the goalkeeper and it’s hugely disappointing.
“It’s a sore one to take and we have to get back to the Dundee performance and the second half of the Hearts game. If we do that, we are capable of winning games.
“Our destiny is in our own hands and we can shape that by winning games. But not with performances like this.
“From the f irst goal onwards I felt St Johnstone were better than us.”