The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
No action to be taken over Saints’ A9 quartet
St JOHNSTONE: No disciplinary action against players who were late for game against Kilmarnock
Tommy Wright has defused the issue of a car-full of players being late for Saturday’s game against Kilmarnock by confirming none of the A9 quartet will face disciplinary action.
The Perth boss is still of the opinion Richard Foster, Chris Millar, Michael O’Halloran and Denny Johnstone cut it too fine to ensure they would be at McDiarmid Park before the 1.15pm deadline.
But he will move on from the incident, which deprived him of two starters for the Killie match and disrupted his pre-game preparations, and the club will assess whether the Saturday routine needs to be changed.
“I’ve drawn a line under it,” said Wright, who revealed a sickness bug also affected several players at the weekend.
“Funnily enough this season we brought forward the time we meet even further (1.15pm) because of the roadworks near McDiarmid.
“I’ve been here six years and spoken to people who have been here a lot longer and it’s never happened before.
“That doesn’t make it right. To me, it still shouldn’t have happened.
“Obviously, everything is put into perspective by the accident itself and our thoughts are with the families of anybody who has been injured.
“But the players have to leave enough time to get here.”
“As far as the players are concerned, if the accident hadn’t happened they would probably have made it here just in time (1.15pm), but they probably didn’t build in enough time for any problem that could have arisen.
“I think they got here at about quarter to four.
“There will be no disciplinary action. I think they’ve probably suffered enough because they’ve missed out on playing.
“We had Michael on the bench but he’d been sitting in a car for a few hours and was feeling a bit stiff. I felt it was best we didn’t even risk him.
“The way the day had gone with people being late and the sickness, it could have been a triple whammy with him going on and doing his hamstring or whatever.”
The Northern Irishman added: “It’s disappointing that we lost two players who would have started, and on top of that there was a sickness bug.
“To lose O’Halloran and disrupt our back four was disappointing. I think it had an impact on our preparations.
“I don’t want it ever happening again. Once is one time too many.
“We’ll have to look at ways to negate the problem altogether.
“The issue we have is very few of our players live in Perth, and historically that has been the case as well.
“For anyone to suggest we’ve been unprofessional would be absolute rubbish.
“The only way to fully eradicate it is to bring the team up and stay overnight on the Friday. There will be a cost to that and I doubt very much that the club will go to that length.
“It might mean we do a pre-match meal here and come in earlier.”
Wright cancelled training yesterday in an attempt to make sure the bug doesn’t spread further.
“Ando, Joe (Shaughnessy) and Blair (Alston) were all hit by the bug,” he revealed.
“Blair had to have a sickness injection at half-time.”
It was clearly a day to forget for Saints, with the nature of the two goals conceded contributing to the weekend misery.
“We’re not looking for excuses because we know we have to be better,” said Wright. “Preparation was disrupted and the sickness didn’t help us.
“It was a day when everything went wrong but we have to learn from it. It’s happened too often at home.
“I don’t know what it is. There was enough energy and commitment in the team but you can’t make silly mistakes like we have done.
“You can’t go to Hibs and put in a fivestar performance and then make those mistakes at home.
“There weren’t 15,000 there like at Easter Road, which gives players an edge. It’s up to us to get people behind us.
“When teams score goals and don’t have to work hard for them that’s the most annoying thing for a manager.
“The first goal was a comedy of errors from when we give the ball away high up the pitch to Liam (Craig), who if he was in that position 1,000 times would clear it 999.
“For the second goal there was about 20 seconds when we could retain possession better and then win a tackle to prevent that goal easily.
“And again, we’ve lacked that bit of quality to work the opposition goalkeeper often enough.”
I don’t want it ever happening again. Once is one time too many. TOMMY WRIGHT