Jim Goodwin was thrilled not just by the three points that his side won at St Johnstone today, but the way in which they reacted to last week’s below par display against Motherwell.

“The reaction after last week was important, and we got that. Football’s easy when you’re winning, but when you lose, and lose the way we did last weekend, that’s when you find out a lot about people. The week had in training, backed up by today, was everything I was hoping for.

“You know what you’ll face at St Johnstone. Callum does a great job, sets his team up as being very hard to beat – I’ve certainly never had great success here in the past as player or manager. But I thought our boys did the job they had to do and did it well.

“Last time we were here last season, it was one of the worst games of football I’ve ever witnessed. If you’re paying good money to come and watch a game you deserve to be entertained. We won’t get it right every time, but today was a step in the right direction, and that’s important for me – are we improving, do we look like a group that has an identity. It’s still a new group, it takes time to gel together, but we’ve got a good result, now we need to do it consistently.”

Leighton Clarkson produced another stunning goal to win the game, possibly thanks to his manager giving one of his team-mates a bit of advice from the sidelines.

“Leighton is a quality player, he’s come from Liverpool! Physically he needs to bulk up a wee bit if he wants to go back there and play in their team, but technically he’s fantastic, brave on the ball, always looking to play forward which is something we wanted in our side. That free-kick was just a real bit of quality. I was petrified Jonny was going to take it! I was shouting on for him to leave it to Leighton and thankfully he stood aside!

“Jonny was excellent again, like he is every week. Great pace, great delivery of the ball, great enthusiasm for the game and a hunger to win. I’m delighted for him that on his 300th appearance, we got the win. We need role models in the group and he is definitely one of those along with Ramadani, Stewart, Lewis, real leaders and great examples for the young players to follow. He looks after himself, live his life right and that’s why he’s having this long career – I hope the young boys take note of that.

“Sometimes you need that bit of individual brilliance to win a game, which is why you sign that kind of player. Miovski has done that in a couple of games and he was unlucky today not to get another goal, but he’s always in the right areas, but you can’t rely on one player to score your goals. We relied too heavily on Christian last season whereas this season, we’ve had a few boys chipping in with goals.

“People will look in the paper tomorrow and see a 1-0 and think it was a close game but honestly, I felt we were well in control of it and could have had a few more goals. Duk was unlucky, Shayden had a couple of chances as well late on. When he gets away from a defender, there’s no catching him, and he was unlucky not to get his first goal today.

“The clean sheet is important too. The boys defended very well, Kelle has had one save to make, I think we can be satisfied with that. Jayden came in for a bit of criticism last weekend, his reaction today was excellent and said a lot about him. Hayden came back in after injury and put in a good display, those two were pivotal for us at full-back. But it’s all about the group, collectively they were outstanding.

“It’s been a long time since we won away from home in the league, the first time we’ve done it in 2022, and that’s not good enough for this club. We’ve stopped that run now, but now we have to be consistent and do it regularly. That’s what the best teams do. Now we have to follow today with a good performance and result against Livingston.”