St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson hailed the attitude of his players as they backed up Sunday’s historic Premier Sports Cup victory with a deserved 1-0 win over Livingston at the SMiSA Stadium.
The Saints were dominant from the off in front of their buoyant home supporters and Jonah Ayunga missed a handful of chances and saw a goal ruled out following a VAR intervention, before substitute Mikael Mandron’s near-post finish secured the victory with 20 mins to go.
Robinson admitted his players enjoyed their celebrations following the cup final victory over Celtic last weekend, but praised their professionalism as they secured a much-needed three points in the league to aid their bid to move away from the relegation places.
He said: “I thought we were in total control of the game. I thought we should have had three or four more.
“I thought the performance was very, very good. I thought we were in total control of the game throughout.
“We’re not used to winning trophies, so the players celebrated hard, I can assure you.
“We’ve done minimal amounts of work to make sure the players were refreshed when they come into the game, and I thought they were. I thought they had legs and energy and good quality.
“After the week that we had, after the high of winning the cup, it’s very, very difficult to go back out again.
“There were some very good performances there. The mentality of the players is the biggest thing I take out of today.”
Despite the victory, Robinson was disappointed to see Ayunga’s strike early in the second half disallowed for a foul by Dan Nlundulu on Daniel Finlayson in the build up.
He said: “It’s important that you highlight that you’re still not happy with the process when you’ve won the game because you can just be seen as bleating on when you lose the game.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think the referee should be ever called over for that decision. I may be proved wrong by other angles or something but it seemed very, very soft.”
Livingston boss David Martindale, meanwhile, was pleased with his side’s defensive display following a heavy defeat to Motherwell in their last away match, though he admitted Livi did not offer enough up front as they extended their run of matches without a victory to 16.
He said: “We spoke about the challenge coming here. They’re very well structured and well-drilled.
“We knew we would have to deal with lots of balls in the box. We knew we would have to stop the crosses in the wide areas.
“We then don’t defend the wide area well enough for the goal and it’s a bit unfortunate that it goes through the goalkeeper’s legs but that was the game. I don’t think there was a lot in the game.
“We’ve had a couple of really poor games away from home. Motherwell away and Hibs away, in particular, but today I didn’t feel we were in danger of losing the game.
“You could argue we’re not doing enough offensively to take something, but today, for 95% of the game I’ve not got a problem with the performance but that one moment costs us a valuable point.”
