Kane Hemmings’ goals are gaining him plaudits, headlines and awards.
But it’s the less eye-catching work that is gaining him the admiration of his Dundee team-mates, according to Darren O’Dea.
Hemmings took his tally to 18 for the season with two strikes against St Johnstone on Friday night.
Combine those goal-scoring statistics with constant endeavour, and the Dark Blues have a forward as good as any in Scotland as far as O’Dea is concerned.
“The confidence is flowing through him,” the Irishman said.
“He missed a few chances but it doesn’t affect him. He thinks he’ll score every time.
“He’s obviously a very good finisher.
“The other side to his game is he works tirelessly and chases people down.
“That’s appreciated. Because he’s on fire just now it would be easy for him to think if he gets his goal and he’s done his job.
“But he starts the defensive work for us and that side of his game was brilliant against St Johnstone.
“It was the same for all our attacking players. Just look at Gary Harkins nicking the ball for the second goal. If he hadn’t done that it would have been coming on to our back four.”
O’Dea added: “Even if Kane hadn’t scored it would still have been a very good performance for him.
“With that work-rate and goals, I wouldn’t like to be in the opposition playing against him.
“He deserves all the plaudits. I’m happy for him because sometimes when you win an award (the Premiership player of the month for January) people think, ‘can he kick on now?’ He’s shown there’s more to come.
“Hopefully he can get a lot more from now until the end of the season.”
And O’Dea believes comparisons with a former Dundee striker, Leigh Griffiths, are valid.
He explained: “Griffiths is a fantastic striker. It’s a credit to Kane that he’s being spoken about in the same breath.
“I know he’ll keep going and he’s got plenty more goals in him.”
There is more to come from Hemmings, and O’Dea feels the same about the team as a whole.
“I said after the Motherwell game that we’ve got so much going talent forward that if we keep clean sheets we can do well.
“The work that was done in front of the back four against St Johnstone made our job easy. It was unbelievable.
“We’re in that in between position where we’ve been in and out of the top six.
“I wouldn’t say it was easy but we’ve won well against the team above us and we need to push on.
“With our attacking prowess we’re so dangerous going forward.
“Dundee haven’t really had a run and it would be good to go on one now before the split.”
Meanwhile, O’Dea is adamant that he didn’t deliberately stamp on Steven Anderson at Dens.
“I’m a bit surprised everyone’s talking about it,” he said.
“The ball’s up in the air, our lad and their lad fall on the ground, and I’m just trying to get over him. I’ve stood on him, there’s no doubt about that but it was purely accidental.
“Their player was angry and has come at me and I’ve tried to explain it to him. There was no stamp. There’s no debate as far as I’m concerned.
“There certainly wasn’t any intention to stand on him or hurt him. I’ve tried to get over him.
“What am I supposed to do, wait until he’s got up?”