Europa League football in early July meant the St Johnstone players barely had a summer break to speak of.
So a few days off during the internationals could be just what the Perth men needed, according to defender Brian Easton.
Not that the full-back has been able to put his feet up.
“I got away up to Skye for a few days,” he explained.
“Mind you I didn’t get much of a chance to rest up. My sister has moved up there for a job in Gaelic education and I was roped in as the removal man. I’m back here for a rest!
“But it was a wee break from thinking about football and that’s just as important. You sometimes have to switch off.
“It was good to have a few days off. We started back early with the European games and didn’t get a lot of time off over the summer.
“The boys are fresh enough right now but the gaffer is thinking about things in the long run. It could catch up with us come March if we don’t do things right at this stage.”
Their last match was a defeat to Celtic, but it was by no means a one-sided contest at Parkhead, and the form curve is still an upward one.
Easton said: “We felt we were playing well enough going into the Motherwell game but we had lost some poor goals. Obviously it was good to get the three points from that one and we followed it up with a decent performance against Celtic.
“So there’s confidence about the place.
“At Celtic Park we were creating chances again. That has been the story of the season so now we have to combine it with being as tight at the back as we were last year.”
Although Saints only have five points to date, they are unbeaten at home.
And that’s not a record they will give up lightly.
Easton noted: “We want to build on that home win against Motherwell. We have a decent record at McDiarmid and it is important to make this a place teams fear coming. The psychology can give you an extra edge.
“It is an important game. We want to get going now rather than wait until later in the season to get on a run.
“We thought it was going to be a tight league this season and that’s the way it is panning out.
“You jump up a few places in the table with a win or two and that is our aim this weekend.”
Martin Canning is a former Hamilton team-mate of Easton’s, and he isn’t surprised that he is now finding his feet as a manager.
“Alex Neil was always going to be a tough act to follow,” he pointed out. “The transition can be hard even when a team has been doing well. You can be trying to do things the same way but it takes time. And they lost a couple of influential players.
“They have started off really well and have already got some good wins under their belt.
“I played alongside Canns. He was always demanding, a leader on the park and he was captain for a while.
“I could always tell he would be a good manager. Now he has had a good pre-season under his belt and added to the squad.”