OH, how St Johnstone came to rue the old adage of being made to pay for not taking your chances.
And how Hearts were thankful of that one about a good goalkeeper being worth an extra 10 points a season. The three earned here were most certainly down to the performance of Jon McLaughlin, and how Hearts will miss him at the end of the season when he, likely, moves back down south.
“It’s probably our best performance all season,” said St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright. “We’ve come here and totally dominated in terms of chances.”
The first of which saw McLaughlin scramble to save David Wotherspoon’s early free kick, and he was then called upon to sprint from his line to thwart the on-rushing Chris Kane, the striker stretching to reach Richard Foster’s ball over the top but the goalkeeper doing splendidly to remain big and paw away. There were other opportunities to come for Kane and he should have done better from the edge of the box than trundle into the keeper’s arms.
It was all St Johnstone. Connor Randall made a mess of a clearance at the back post, allowing Scott Tanser a drive McLaughlin did well to save but only turned into the path of Kane. Stretching again, the angle proved too tight and only the side netting rippled.
Kane’s golden opportunity though was a thudding volley from the edge of the box that rattled the crossbar shortly after the half-hour mark. The Hearts supporters took their ire out on Andrew Dallas as the half ticked away but in truth they were perhaps fortunate he hadn’t pointed to the spot when Steven Anderson’s header came off Christophe Berra’s arm.
Dallas was to infuriate Wright as the match progressed but the St Johnstone manager would have been pleased to see the only opportunities Hearts created in the first period follow a pattern of Joaquim Adao, David Milinkovic and Kyle Lafferty all shooting straight at Alan Mannus from distance.
But how the tables turned at the start of the second half – 39 seconds of it to be exact. Danny Amankwaa crossed from the left and when the ball reached Milinkovic, the Hearts No.11 pirouetted superbly and hooked into the net.
St Johnstone’s efforts were made even weightier when Wotherspoon saw two yellow cards in the space of six second-half minutes, first for persistent fouling then for a challenge on the halfway line on Adao.
Wright, who had to be ushered away from the referee at the end, dubbed the sending off “ridiculous”, and added: “There’s a lot of anger about the referee’s performance in the dressing room. I’m certainly not going to be ringing [SFA head of refereeing] John Fleming because I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve called him about Andrew Dallas.”
Yet, Wright’s side managed the remaining 27 minutes better than anticipated and, despite Lafferty squandering two chances, continued to press for an equaliser they would have deserved, the final opportunity a Foster volley caught comfortably by McLaughlin.
And for Hearts manager Craig Levein, that ensured another clean sheet and three points. “I’ll never get bored of that,” Levein said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here