Hibernian 0-0 St Mirren: Hibs feel right at home

HIBS are not the only team to have been frustrated by St Mirren in recent weeks so they would be well-advised not to beat themselves up about this one. If the outcome didn’t exactly speak of a team putting their dark days behind them, the warm applause to which they were treated at full-time was instructive.

They weren’t brilliant, but they worked hard, and created the better chances. They didn’t claim what would have been only their second home win of the season, but their creeping progress under Pat Fenlon continues. It is only a point, but it takes them four clear of bottom-placed Dunfermline Athletic, with a game in hand, and the spectre of relegation is gradually receding.

They could have beaten St Mirren. Should have beaten them. Would have done had they not encountered an impressive goalkeeper in Craig Samson, who made a series of important saves, the best of which instinctively blocked a first-half header by James McPake.

There is a way to go yet for Fenlon’s team, but the impression is that they are now optimistic of winning, rather than petrified of losing, which perhaps explained much of their former haplessness at Easter Road. “We are gradually getting rid of that,” said the manager. “Fear of playing in your own ground… that’s got to go. The supporters backed us really well, particularly in the second half, and you can see the confidence coming back for the players.”

St Mirren defended stoutly, especially with only one available centre-half, and did well to gain a point without several of their more creative players, but entertainers they are not. This was their ninth league match without a win, their fourth scoreless draw in five. In their last six outings, they have found the net only once.

Danny Lennon, their manager, argued that they had done well with a depleted squad. “These are games that we would have lost in the past,” he said. “We want to turn the draws into wins, and the losses into draws. We’re certainly getting the draws. We have had more draws than John Wayne and Clint Eastwood put together.”

Suspensions did not help St Mirren. Although Steven Thompson returned from his ban, Paul McGowan and Dougie Imrie were absent, leaving Nigel Hasselbaink to provide their only invention. When he cut the ball back, after an early surge to the byeline, Steven Thomson slapped his shot carelessly over the bar.

A Gary Teale free kick dribbled wide, and Graham Stack flapped at a corner from the same player, but apart from that, the best of what few chances there were in a poor first half fell to Hibs.

Leigh Griffiths, partnered up front by Roy O’Donovan, dragged a shot across the face of goal, and McPake twice threatened to convert corners by George Francomb. The first was a meaty header, parried off the line by Samson, the second just as powerful, although it missed the target by at least a couple of yards.

In the early part of the second period, Hibs gathered momentum, first with a run by Ivan Sproule that culminated in a poor shot, then with a bizarre free kick that nearly resulted in the opening goal. When O’Donovan was sent sprawling to the turf just outside the penalty box, Leigh Griffiths sauntered over to size up the dead ball. After much deliberation, he hit his first effort into the defensive wall.

Then, as the rebound came to him at waist height, he struck a downward shot into the ground with such strength that it bounced over the defenders and into a gap ahead of the goalkeeper. O’Donovan somehow stole in to beat the offside trap, but was denied by Samson at point-blank range.

Hasselbaink failed to connect properly with a flashing cross by Teale, and St Mirren had a penalty claim rejected when Thompson tumbled in the box, but Hibs carried by far the greater threat. A shot by Jorge Claros fizzed past the base of a post, and Griffiths’ angled hit, after a slick one-two with Isaiah Osbourne, was blocked by Samson. When Griffiths laid the rebound off to David Wotherspoon, the substitute had his effort tipped away for a corner by the St Mirren goalkeeper.

With seven minutes to go, Hibs claimed for a penalty when David Barron appeared to handle the ball in the box. Griffiths, who was denied a clear run on goal, protested furiously to the referee, but the plea was rejected, leaving Hibs to settle for the point.