FANSDESERVEDBETTER Saints captain O’Hara disappointed for travelling support
Mark O’Hara insists St Mirren’s bumper black-and-white army deserved better than Saturday’s Kilmarnock capitulation.
The Buddies were backed by an incredible following of almost 2,500 fans at Rugby Park.
However, hundreds of supporters were heading home long before the final whistle as Killie came back from 2-0 down at half-time to win 5-2 in a devastating 18-minute spell.
Derek McInnes’ men are two points clear of Saints in fourth with the battle for Europe and top-six football reaching boiling point.
Captain O’Hara knows there will be a lot of time spent in the analysis room at
Ralston getting to the bottom of why it went so wrong, so quickly.
But the 28-year-old’s immediate thoughts were with the Saints faithful who travelled to East Ayrshire in huge numbers and witnessed an astonishing collapse.
“It’s sickening,” he said. “I didn’t see it coming. It’s a shock and unlike us as a team. We are shell-shocked.
“I’ve been involved in football for a long time and anything can happen.
“We knew they were going to come out and have a go but it was still shocking for us what happened.
“As a group, we have a lot of strength and it’s something that wouldn’t usually happen. Hopefully, it’s a learning curve for us and it won’t happen again.
“It’s hard to pinpoint right now.
“Everyone is a bit numb. I am sure we will have a good week of analysis and we will learn from here.
“I’m massively disappointed for the fans because it must have been a record turnout from them here.
“I’m sad and disappointed for the fans because they deserve more than what we gave them.”
The Paisley men were braced for a second-half response from Killie after Charles Dunne and Mikael Mandron put them in the driving seat at the break.
But what followed was simply unbelievable as Kyle Vassell’s double and further efforts from Danny Armstrong, Marley Watkins and David Watson sank Saints.
O’Hara said: “Killie have got good quality players in attacking areas and when things are going well for them it’s hard to counteract that.
“We could feel them getting momentum and, of course, they were going to come out with nothing to lose.
“It’s a hard storm to ride when they had their tails up and were pressing us but we’ve had that before and mandated to deal with it.
“We didn’t and it is disappointing. “There’s no point dwelling on it. It has to be a one-off and we have to learn from it.”
Saints’ next game is not until Saturday, March 30 when they go to Motherwell after the international break. Hearts and Celtic complete their pre-split fixtures.
The trip to Fir Park will be a long time coming for the squad and O’Hara feels they will have a point to prove.
He said: “I’d rather have a game in midweek to get it out of our system as quickly as possible. But we have another massive game against Motherwell after the break so we have to focus on that.
“We have three massive games now to prove this was a fluke and won’t happen again.”