St Johnstone have a new team of cup final legends.
To Willie Ormond’s boys of 1969, Sandy Clark’s of 1998 and Tommy Wright’s class of 2014 you can add to the list Callum Davidson’s Hampden Heroes.
The Perth side produced their most ruthless and clinical performance of the season on the biggest day and the biggest stage.
They soaked up 30 minutes of Hibs pressure, and carried a large slice of good fortune it has to be said, but after that it was a masterclass of taking chances.
Jason Kerr and Shaun Rooney scored with magnificent headers, then Craig Conway finished off a superb move for the third Saints goal.
And they now have a Betfred final to look forward to in just over a month – which they’ll have a great chance of winning.
Davidson made two changes to the team which beat St Mirren last weekend.
One of them, Murray Davidson for Craig Bryson, was expected. The other, Conway for Guy Melamed, less so.
It wasn’t the start Saints would have hoped for.
Martin Boyle had a shot which spun just wide of the far post after Ali McCann didn’t get enough behind his block tackle on the edge of the box.
Zander Clark wasn’t called into action then but he was to keep out a Paul Hanlon volley from a corner.
Seconds later he blocked a Jamie Murphy shot and while the Saints keeper was on the ground the same man struck the crossbar from the rebound.
Before we were half an hour into the game there was also a Jackson Irvine header that narrowly missed the target and then another one that hit the outside of the post.
For Saints, the only glimmer of a chance up until that point was when Shaun Rooney picked out Chris Kane at the back post but the lone striker could only head it back to an area where it was easy for Ofir Marciano to collect.
They had pushed their luck, that’s for sure, but the Perth men took full advantage when they grabbed a shock lead on 35 minutes.
David Wotherspoon sent a corner to the back post where Kerr rose above Ryan Porteous to power an unstoppable header home.
Four minutes into the second half it was another set-piece, another header and another goal for Saints to make it 2-0.
Conway floated a free-kick towards the penalty spot where Rooney followed Kerr’s lead with an equally impressive headed finish.
The utterly stunning turnaround in this game wasn’t complete yet as just after the hour mark Saints were three up.
It was from open play this time.
A lovely move down the right culminated in Rooney drilling the ball across goal for Conway to help it over the line from close range.
Almost as impressive as the goals Saints scored was the way they saw out the remainder of the match.
As Nick Dasovic said this week in his description of the ’98 side’s 3-0 win against Hearts – it ended in “cruise control”.
This is a match and result that will join that historic triumph of over two decades ago in St Johnstone folklore.
