A bang on the head at Ibrox may have left Murray Davidson seeing stars at Ibrox.
But the St Johnstone midfielder believes it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Albeit a painful one.
The Perth man was concussed, and hospitalised, following a clash with Rangers’ Nicky Law in the League Cup quarter-final.
It was another set-back for the Scotland international, coming on the back of a long-term lay-off with a serious knee injury.
At the time, Davidson thought it was a sign that his bad luck was showing no sign of ending.
But now that he is back in the Saints team, and back near to his best, he can look on it as a turning point.
The former Livingston player revealed it was at that point he took stock, and stopped trying to take a short-cut back to fitness and form.
Davidson explained: “It probably wasn’t a bad thing getting concussed, in hindsight.
“I was probably training too early when I came back from my injury, to be honest. But all you want to do is play football after being out with a long-term injury.
“It was my first serious injury and until you go through it, you don’t actually know how to deal with it.
“I neglected doing the exercises I should have been doing, looking back, because we thought we were there.
“It gave me a couple of weeks out to put a couple of things right that are now making a difference.
“The manager, the physio and myself had a chat to try and get the balance right, and I think we’ve achieved that. The knee’s perfect now.”
Perth boss Tommy Wright believes Friday night against Aberdeen was the first time Davidson has looked like the all-action midfielder who was one of the Premier League’s finest pre-knee injury.
And the player agrees.
“I feel like my old self again,” he said.
“It was good to get back on the pitch.
“I jarred my knee in a tackle on the Thursday before the Partick game. That’s why I missed that one. Then I missed Inverness as well.
“I got fit for Saturday. I was delighted to play and I was delighted with the team performance.
“We played with a tempo and pace that they struggled to deal with. On another day we could have won it.
“For myself it was great to get 90 minutes.”
Davidson also agreed with his manager that there is no rush to start talking contract extensions.
“It’s been a frustrating year but there’s still a lot to play for this season and it’s about knuckling down and keeping my performance levels up,” he pointed out.
“The manager has been very supportive of me, and it’s great to hear he wants me to stay.
“We’ve all been focused on getting me fit.
“If I can get a run of games under my belt, we’ll probably sit down then.”
Davidson may have had one good game, but he knows he has a fight on his hands to become a first team regular again.
“When you looked at our bench on Friday you could see it was a very strong squad,” he said.
“If you’re in the team you have to play well to stay there, and if things aren’t going well we have options to change things and change the game.”
Meanwhile, Davidson believes young striker Chris Kane will benefit from being an unknown quantity in the top flight, and he doesn’t have any worries that the goals will soon start to flow for him.
“Kano gave Aberdeen countless problems,” he said.
“I felt what he did very well was he stretched the game.
“Even if he wasn’t on the ball he was affecting it, because it gave Macca (Steven MacLean) a little more space to come and link the game.
“You could see Aberdeen were wary of him running in behind. Mayso (Stevie May) used to do it. If we were struggling we thumped it in behind them and Kano chased it down.
“I’m sure Del (Derek McInnes) and Tony (Docherty) would have told them the type of player he is, but you could see in the first 10 minutes Aberdeen didn’t know much about him.
“When Mayso came into the team no-one knew much about him. There is that unknown factor that can help you and it’s up to Kano to keep his performance up at that standard. He was excellent.
“In training one of his strong points is putting the ball in the back of the net. He maybe needed to show a bit more composure, which he will. We know the goals will come.”