Kilmarnock 0 - 0 St Johnstone: Both sides pay the price of players falling over in the box but hosts miss real thing

THIS looked to be a tight game on paper and so it proved to be when it was played out on the slippery Rugby Park turf yesterday.

Not only did an ultimately sterile 90 minutes yield no goals, but both sides contrived to finish with ten men.

Dean Shiels of Kilmarnock and St Johnstone’s Cillian Sheridan managing to pick up second yellow cards for what the referee decided were identical offences – simulation – as they took tumbles in their opponents’ box. Ironically, the home side did actually get themselves a penalty on the stroke of half-time, but that was squandered by Shiels to complete an unfortunate afternoon for the son of the Kilmarnock manager.

In the end it may have been a point for each side but the outcome did little for their respective aspirations – Kilmarnock’s of simply securing a top-six finish and St Johnstone’s of perhaps snatching a Europa League place.

Candid as always, Kenny Shiels conceded the Ayrshire club’s hopes of making it into the top half of the table were receding but also sounded a defiant note.

“At the start of the season 18 journalists had Kilmarnock down to be relegated so, if we’re being realistic, we’re doing really well to be equal seventh”.

On the circumstances of his son’s dismissal he was no less forthright. “I’ve seen the footage. It was a penalty, it wasn’t a dive. Dean was in full flight and the guy’s caught him. But it also looked as though St Johnstone should have had a penalty when their player was sent off. These things happen in football.”

In a decent enough first half it actually looked as though this game would yield up more talking points than red cards and penalty claims.

The visitors started pretty briskly but couldn’t put away any of a string of teasing crosses supplied by Lee Croft and Dave Mackay, whilst Kilmarnock came closest with a Gary Harkins downward header that bounced up and on to the crossbar.

As the interval approached the hosts seemed to have weathered both the persistent rain and the early Saints storm and following a quick break upfield were presented with the ideal opportunity to put themselves in front as Callum Davidson was adjudged to have impeded Harkins in the box as he twisted his way towards goal.

Shiels was probably not greeted with a beaming smile from his dad as he traipsed into the dressing room at half time, having sent a woefully struck spot kick too close to Alan Mannus, the St Johnstone goalkeeper.

The outcome was greeted with a sense of relief and justice by Saints manager, Steve Lomas: “I thought we were comfortable early on and I would have been very disappointed if we had gone in at half time 1-0 down.”

Perhaps all the moisture in the air had something to do with it as somehow both sides fell well short of offering up the same levels of entertainment in a damp squib of a second half. Plenty of honest graft was still on display, but goalmouth incidents all but disappeared from view.

Shiels jnr, booked in the first half, made his exit after 75 minutes after referee Craig Charleston didn’t fancy his fall in the box.

With a numerical advantage, the gates had seemingly opened for Lomas’s men to close in on victory, but they were curiously reticent, perhaps betraying that securing a point was a case of job done for them.

The extra man ultimately proved to be temporary in any case, with Sheridan finding himself following the same early exit to the dressing room as Shiels, following another penalty box tangle.

Lomas refused to be drawn into making an issue of his player’s dismissal.

“I’m not going to criticise a young referee making his way in the game,” said the Saints manager.