Hibs away

Momentous

Every so often in a season, pivotal points occur and you recognise them instantly; Saturday was such a day.

Steve Lomas has transformed Saints from a boring team of low-confidence, under-achievers to a bustling energetic team of believers. The transformation in players is self-evident; Ando has stepped up, Haber works his balls off and Sandaza tracks back with surprising regularity. With signings like Compton and Croft, the future looks bright for Saints. This is a golden era, be in no doubt. Your children and grandchildren will ask you about this era; be sure you can tell them of your match day experiences.

Personally, I am saddened by the loss of Garts and Parkin. The rugged defender couldn’t have had worse luck if he lived under a ladder. That said, a parting of the ways was inevitable following comments by Del in the summer. Parkin, was always gonna struggle from the break and with three recognised, in-form strikers playing ahead of him it was always gonna be wise to free up his chunky wage. Both lads leave with my best wishes, good and devoted servants of our great club. Fraudulent Willie Gibson is also away. His only achievement being to gain one and a half stones of puppy fat during his stay. Oh aye, he played a freekick out the park at Tannadice after Callum Davidson has asked him to show some composure. I reckon we signed him, because Del or Doc lost a bet with the Crawley Town gaffer.

Lee Croft arrived amidst a deluge of crap journalism. Scotland really has very few writers that break away from clichés and stereotypes. The lack of knowledge and research amongst Scottish journalists is embarrassing. I read very little about Croft because our “journalists” found it easier to print captions under photographs of his missus – whoever she is or was. Admittedly, she looks like a cliché personified. Not a patch on Gary Irvine’s missus...

Croft himself got lucky on the field, when from a rebound; the ball dropped kindly allowing him to lash a terrific right footed shot into the lower left postage stamp of Mark Brown’s goal. Initial thoughts are that he’s a poor man’s Gavin Swankie, a brilliant winger who can score for fun. His touch was mostly impeccable, his fitness utterly deplorable. Compton has arrived amidst stinging rebuke of his character and attitude, but for Crofty to be so unfit speaks volumes for his response to being dropped from the Derby side. It could well be that we’ve signed two tricky characters, but as they’re loan players we simply need them to do a job for four months. I trust Lomas to do that.

Both men certainly showed glimpses of promise on the debut, Crofty took his goal well and despite Compton losing Booth for the Hibs second, he arguably prevented a goal just moments earlier. Alert on the edge of our box, he showed great instinct to nick the ball away. I doubt he’ll ever have Crofty’s talent for finishing, but his crossing and willing to run by folk will stand him in good stead. It’s also worth remembering that Compton is a lefty and was asked to play wide right....

In the case of both men, we must temper our excitement with the blunt reality that 10 teams have a better left back than Booth. Only Dunfermline have a worse shirt filler. Remember that Cleve looked good against Kevin Fotheringham for 45 minutes at Station Park. No honestly, he really did....

The other talking point from the game was the disappearance of two midfield players. Kevin Moon has steadily dropped out of the frame under Lomas and that makes little sense from an outside perspective. I wonder if the contract extension was for when Jody departs, if so, he needs to get some games elsewhere. Maybe a loan move to Bristol....

The other guy to disappear is Murray Davidson. I don’t understand the fluctuating levels of performance from his this season. At Aberdeen he was scintillating, yet against Hibs, he looked as poor as he did in his first season. The game passed him by and it felt like we were playing with ten men. His team mates are mostly fans, but the fans are getting frustrated by him. Because we’re playing well, he’ll get off lightly; if we hit a sticky patch, he’ll be castigated by all and sundry. With Jamie Adams unavailable until March at the earliest, there’s no ready-made replacement waiting in the wings. Of course, as has been noted by several Saints players, nobody plays well in centre mid when Jody is selected.....

Jody himself had a decent game. Pushed slightly further up than normal, he had no Murray or Millar to battle with and should have perhaps been more adventurous on occasion. The shape of our side improved greatly in the second half and it’s no coincidence that Jody had a better second half as a result. The wee English terrier can often find his brain working way ahead of his team mates, having Fran and Haber in the side often allows Jody to play smarter balls. For all his baggage, he’ll be missed when he goes. It now looks unlikely that he’ll go in this window, despite Cook electing to stay put at Sligo.

On the left wing, Liam Craig again put in a stellar performance. Del’s first signing was undoubtedly one of the good ones. He came here with a perceived attitude problem, certainly talked his way into bother with referees in his first half year, but under Del he really turned himself around – with the brilliant exception of the St Mirren game in April 2010! Perceived troublemaker, left footed and a player that Saints fans know little about – that’s the first thing that Del and Lomas have in common, first signing similarities!

Liam took his goal brilliantly and his work rate was great all day. Callum didn’t advance much on the day meaning it was harder for Liam to link up but he always made himself available for an outball. His work rate seems to increase year on year. Any accusations of laziness have been blown out of the water. Indeed it was his full back that put in a lazy, albeit composed shift.

Callum rightly used his experience to spend the 90 minutes with a defensive mindset. The boy will make an excellent manager in due course. He just knows when to attack and when to defend. Very rarely does he get flustered and very rarely does he get decisions wrong. Quite unlike Euan Norris, who managed to book Callum for his first (and only?) foul of the game. A foul committed in front of the dugouts! That’s dugouts plural, Mr Norris; one where a bus load of overly-animated, ruffians shouted and bawled for almost 100 minutes, in the other dugout Tommy was generally under-control. Odd then that Tommy was the one receiving a lecture from the upstart charged with displaying a flashy board for subs and time added on.

We’re getting incredibly lucky with other teams results, but referees, and their band of equally incompetent colleagues, are doing their best to de-rail our push for top six. Not deliberately, I’m not “Celtic-minded”, we’re just getting unlucky. Runs of luck come and go; better to have bad luck when we’re well up, never want bad luck to coincide with poor form.

Inside him, the centre half pairing of Ando Cracks have now conceded 5 goals at Easter Road, but two were penalties which should never have been awarded. “Ando for Scotland” was the chant in the stand, richly deserved too. The veteran centre half made very few errors and can be rightly proud of his performance. We need to hope that the certainty of wages will be the deciding factor for Ando as he mulls over his future. If we lose him, a replacement will be near impossible to find. With Enckleman likely to flee the country in summer time, we need to try and ensure stability in our defence. Let’s hope we nail the deal in the next couple of weeks. His play will improve once the decision is made. He clearly enjoys his football now and he’s becoming ever more vocal on the field which is the sign of growing confidence.

His partner, Cracks, brings an incredible coolness to the backline. Excellent communication, a wonderful touch, strong in the tackle and built like Unimog; he’s been the surprise of the summer signings. I really wasn’t convinced when we signed him, but he won me over from his first game against Dunfermline. His role against Hibs involved marking O’Connor, he did it so well that the petty criminal was withdrawn early in the second half. None of the Hibs attackers managed to impress me; none of them would get in our team, that’s a surety.

Dave Mackay had a pretty poor game. I haven’t watched the re-run, but he let a ball come into the box in the first half that he should have cut out and seemed to be at sixes and sevens for large parts of the game. His strength is generally his ability to maraud forward, but with Crofty and Sandaza ripping the keich out of Booth; he was rather hemmed in. Get pressed much better in the second half as Fran played more towards the middle. Again it’s hard to judge the right hand men because we were being allowed to play the most obvious “one-twos” ever seen in the SPL.  It won’t be see easy against the Well...

Enckleman didn’t have to make many saves but when he did they were mostly under control. He had no chance with the penalty and Booth finished a very slick move to leave the Finn relying on lady luck. He’ll be unhappy to have let in two goals, but really he should be proud of his game.

Up front, I’m out of platitudes for the lads. I was critical of Haber first half for letting his foot off the gas. He knows that Sheridan is after his starting jersey and he should have been nailing his balls to the wall in a bid to ensure that he keeps Cillian on the bench. He didn’t in the first half, he got bullied and let his head drop for the last twenty minutes. In the second half he turned it round and ran himself into the ground. He was clearly unhappy at being withdrawn, particularly because his only competitor was the man who replaced him. I don’t know Lomas well enough to guess at who’ll start against Motherwell, but if I had to bet I’d go with Marcus and Fran. A partnership is blossoming so why change a winning side?

So we head to Motherwell, a team who struggle at home and who were thrashed by the Super Saintees last time in Lanarkshire. We need a strong result ahead of the cup tie, our rivals play Dunfermline in midweek and that will scunner their training for the week. A few injuries would be grand too. Either way, the momentum is with Saints; don’t go expecting, simply go believing! This is a golden age – don’t miss out on your chance to watch Lomas’ Legends.