The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
No sunshine in Leith as Saints turn attention towards playoff
With their final game somewhere between an inconvenience and an irrelevance, St Johnstone ended the 2021-22 Premiership campaign in defeat.
In a week and a bit, we’ll know if it was their last top-flight match for a couple of months or considerably longer.
Of all the league losses this season, number 19 mattered the least by quite some distance.
Beating Aberdeen on Wednesday night turned the clash with Hibs into a dead rubber. It’s all about the playoffs, end of story.
Inverness Caledonian Thistle should not read too much, if anything, into the result or the emphatic scoreline.
This was an end of season-type contest if ever there was one.
Callum Davidson was prioritising the availability of key players in the Highlands on Friday night over any value a win would have brought.
The team selection spoke to that sensible mindset.
Zander Clark, Murray Davidson, Ali Crawford and Theo Bair all watched the game from the stand, with Liam Gordon, Callum Hendry, Melker Hallberg and James Brown on the bench.
Davidson could not rest all his senior pros, though.
And, as such, the lunchtime Leith jeopardy was in players picking up injuries rather than points dropped or goals conceded.
Glenn Middleton getting clattered by veteran Darren McGregor and then needing treatment with less than two minutes on the clock was an early reminder of what could go wrong.
Thankfully, he did not turn out to be badly injured and the free-kick the on-loan Rangers forward earned for his team was taken by Cammy MacPherson, who struck it into the Hibs wall.
Given the changes, Saints started pretty well actually and enjoyed plenty of possession.
Middleton – whose quick feet will be a key weapon in the playoffs – worked himself a 25-yard shooting opportunity on 16 minutes, forcing a decent save out of Matt Macey.
In the opening stages Hibs, much like Aberdeen in midweek, looked a team wishing the season had finished weeks ago.
In the main, Saints were keeping them at bay quite comfortably during the first half and the only scare was a Joe Newell cross Josh Doig turned past the post.
John Mahon was not called into action as the Perth side’s last man in defence too often but he timed a sliding tackle to perfection in foiling Harry
Clarke as he drove into the box 10 minutes before the break.
Saints had an opportunity to go into half-time ahead after Hibs got caught short of numbers on a counterattack, with only Lewis Stevenson in a position to stop Shaun Rooney from charging through on goal.
It took textbook one vs one defending from the veteran to stop Rooney getting a shot away.
The value of it multiplied when Hibs took the lead on 44 minutes.
Saints failed to clear a Newell corner and Paul McGinn hooked his shot past Elliott Parish from eight yards out.
One down became two down just three minutes after the restart, with McGinn the provider this time. His cross was met by James Scott and Parish was unable to get down quickly enough to keep the striker’s finish out. It was a scruffy goal all round.
Scott’s strike for 3-0 just after the hour was far more convincing – a low firsttime shot from a Newell cross. By this stage Mahon had been taken off, replaced by Michael O’Halloran.
Scott should have completed a hat-trick on 73 minutes but was denied by Parish and then Elias Melkersen missed an open goal from the rebound, with his blushes spared by a flag being raised for offside.
Saints’ best opportunity to score came when Middleton raced into the box but could not slip the ball to the side of Macey from a tight angle.
Then with just two minutes left Scott did get his third – a cushioned header that seemed to go past Parish in slow motion.
For Hibs, it was a positive way to sign off a miserable season.
Caretaker David Gray paid tribute to McGregor after the long-serving defender played what may have been his last game for the club.
The 36-year-old, who in 2016 won the Scottish Cup with the team he supported as a boy, still has a year left on his deal but has not played much this term and is resigned to the likelihood that he will not be part of things next term as the Easter Road side prepare to appoint a new manager.
McGregor was handed the captaincy as he made his first start since December in the last game of his seventh season at the club.
“It was not just sentimental reasons that he played today,” said Gray.
“He played because after Tuesday night (a 3-1 defeat at Dundee), in terms of the reaction we needed, I knew I’d have someone I could trust, who cares about the club immensely.
“He’s had nothing but success since he’s been here, he’s a great professional. You don’t play as many games as he has, to the age he’s at, without looking after yourself and doing everything right. He’s a leader and he’s an example to the young ones.
“He’s been huge for Hibs. He’s been part of a hugely successful period, winning the Scottish Cup, then went on to win promotion, then had a record points tally in the SPFL and has played his part in semi-finals and finals.”