Saints take packed lunch on trip!

SCOTLAND’S festive lockdown has wrecked St Mirren’s pre-match plans for today’s trip to the Highlands — and left players relying on packed lunches ahead of their clash with Ross County. With all hotels and restaurants forced to close from a minute past midnight, the usual matchday meal arrangements have fallen by the wayside. Branding the whole situation ‘not professional’, manager Jim Goodwin said: ‘Look, Ross County is always a really difficult away day. But on Boxing Day... it’s a nightmare, to be honest with you. ‘We got an email from the Kingsmill Hotel in Inverness where we were due to go for our pre-match meal. ‘Unfortunately, because of the restrictions that kick in, we won’t be able to go there anymore. ‘So I think my wife will be making turkey sandwiches for the boys on the bus. It’s just another obstacle put in our way. ‘We were due to set off at half past eight to get us up to Inverness for half 11. The boys usually like to have their

meal three hours before. But we’ll not need to do that now. The lads will probably be happy to get an extra hour in their bed. ‘It’s not ideal preparation, it’s not professional to be perfectly honest with you, but what can we do?’ added Goodwin, with St Mirren’s situation mirrored by clubs travelling up and down the country in the Scottish Cup first round today. ‘There’s a pandemic going on, the government are shutting hotels, we can’t get any food up there. So we’ll need to bring a packed lunch and do it like the good old days when we used to be at school. Hopefully that little bit of adversity will help us.’ St Mirren’s long unbeaten run came to an end with Wednesday’s 1-0 loss to Hibernian at Easter Road. But the Paisley side, who knocked Rangers out of the Betfred Cup last midweek, still look like a team transformed. An early sequence of six straight Premiership losses, plus the various Covid crises that left Goodwin struggling to field a team, seem like a distant memory at a club sitting five points clear of bottom spot. The Saints boss isn’t getting carried away, though. ‘We’re not stupid. I am certainly not standing here thinking we are out of the woods or anything like that,’ added Goodwin (right). ‘We are well in the mix to get into the top six but also well in the mix to get dragged into things at the other end. We’re quite a grounded bunch. Because we have been on a decent run people might get carried away but we are certainly not in house. ‘We’ve got a really big challenge coming. Ross County is an opportunity to get points on the board but it is always a difficult away day. If we come away with a point, great, if we come away with all three I’ll be delighted.’ Meanwhile, County’s Ross Draper admits the grim look of the Premiership table for the bottomplaced Dingwall side affords them little time to start delivering for new boss John Hughes. Midfielder Draper, previously a mainstay of a successful Inverness side under Hughes’ command, said: ‘It’s probably different circumstances to when the gaffer took over at Inverness. ‘We were second or third in the league at the time under Terry Butcher and results weren’t needed. ‘I remember before one game, he (Hughes) said: “I don’t care if you win or lose, I just want to see a performance”. ‘It’s different here. It’s about getting points on the board and winning games. ‘The gaffer will be trying to drip-feed information into the squad, without overloading things. ‘That’s the way he will go about it but it’s a results business. And we need to get wins. ‘He (Hughes) has come in and made a really good impression and the boys are enjoying it. Now it’s about doing the business on the park. We need to get together as a group and get results.’