While most of the after-match talk quite rightly focused on Peter MacDonald’s excellent winning goal for Dundee, the St Mirren game marked an important step in another striker’s fledgling career.
Craig Wighton, a week to the day since signing a new contract with the Dark Blues, was named in the starting line-up to take on the Buddies.
Hitherto, we had seen the 17-year-old frontman miss the opening League Cup tie against Peterhead, play two minutes as a sub against Kilmarnock as the Premiership campaign kicked off. stay on the bench in Inverness, then turn the match against Partick Thistle with an equaliser after coming on at half-time.
Manager Paul Hartley rewarded Wighton for that goal and performance against the Jags with a jersey on Saturday.
Significantly, the teenager stayed on the park for the full 90 minutes, surviving attack-minded switches that saw both Gary Harkins and Luka Tankulic go off to be replaced by MacDonald and Martin Boyle.
While there wasn’t a goal from him this time, the touches and passes were there and it was encouraging the way he coped with the rough stuff that came his way at times.
It would have been easy to opt for the young lad when the board went up but the fact that Hartley kept him on in such a vital match for the club speaks volumes for a player who at one point seemed certain to be going out on loan.