TOMMY Wright admitted he was happy to see Stefan Scougall have the last laugh after the midfielder’s first St Johnstone goal earned the Perth side a 1-0 victory away to Hamilton Accies.
Scougall had been the butt of jokes among his team-mates after a nightmare training session during the week, but the 25-year-old showed his quality when he took advantage of a misunderstanding in the Hamilton defence between Scott McMann and Dougie Imrie, and comfortably dispatched the ball into the net at the SuperSeal Stadium.
Manager Wright hopes it will be the first of many goals for Scougall at Saints. The Northern Irishman said: “It’s his first goal and I think he has done well. Goals and assists are what we want from him.
“He had been getting a bit of a ribbing as he didn’t have the best of training sessions on the 4G pitch at McDiarmid and the lads were keeping him going by asking if he had ever played on it before.
“But he’s a quality player and he showed real quality in the goal. He was under pressure but he coolly slotted it away.”
Wright was full of praise for goalkeeper Zander Clark who kept his side in it at times with several good saves, particularly one from Giannis Skondras after the ball came through a ruck of players.
“He made a great save down to his right and it was an important save,” Wright said. “I think it came through a crowd of players which makes it an even better save.
“But as a former goalkeeper I’d argue that’s what he is there for. He has to make those saves to stay in the team, with Alan [Mannus] breathing down his neck.
“What pleased me with Zander was the way he has dealt with balls in the box.
“They had a great delivery from [David] Templeton and Imrie and they put everybody in the six-yard box.
“Zander was strong then and he came and punched two or three in the second half which pleased me a lot.”
Hamilton forward Rakish Bingham urged his team-mates to bounce back from the defeat. He wrote on Twitter: “A result we didn’t deserve but most importantly we stick together and go again.”
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