St Mirren clinch top-six spot despite home loss to Hearts

Posted Sunday, April 07, 2024 by PA

St Mirren sealed their place in the top six of the cinch Premiership for a second successive season despite going down 2-1 at home to Hearts.

A Jorge Grant penalty and a Mikael Mandron own goal put the visitors two goals ahead, making Toyosi Olusanya’s terrific solo effort a mere consolation.

Hibernian’s defeat at home to St Johnstone, however, was enough to confirm Saints’ berth in the top half of the table for the five final games while Hearts consolidated their hold on third place.

Saints manager Stephen Robinson made three changes from the side that drew with Motherwell. Out went Ryan Strain, Mark O’Hara and James Bolton, replaced by Elvis Bwomono, Kwon Hyeok-kyu and Richard Taylor.

Hearts, in turn, made two switches following their draw with Kilmarnock, with Cammy Devlin and Kye Rowles coming in for Lawrence Shankland and Beni Baningime.

The windy conditions made things difficult for both sides, with a free-kick attempt from Saints’ Caolan Boyd-Munce soaring high over the crossbar.

But Hearts went in front from the penalty spot after 33 minutes. Marcus Fraser slid in with his arm raised to block Kenneth Vargas’ shot and VAR asked referee Alan Muir to take a second look.

He didn’t take long before awarding the spot-kick that Grant confidently slid past Zach Hemming to give the visitors the lead.

Hearts had the wind at their backs in the second period and almost took advantage with their first attack, Vargas’ shot across the face of goal drifting only narrowly beyond the far post.

The Costa Rican looked the player most likely to create something and another run and shot again went just wide.

St Mirren’s best chance early in the second half came from the boot of a Hearts player, with Frankie Kent nearly putting the ball into his own net after Olusanya had lost control but Zander Clark made a good save to spare his team-mate’s blushes.

Instead it was Hearts who scored next to double their lead in the 62nd minute. Alex Cochrane’s corner was headed back across goal by Alan Forrest and ended up ricocheting off Mandron and into the net.

The home side could have cut the deficit moments later but Taylor headed wide from Boyd-Munce’s corner.

St Mirren, though, did finally get a goal back not long afterwards.

Olusanya carried the ball towards the Hearts goal from the halfway line, holding off the backtracking defenders before finishing well past Clark.

Devlin should have scored a third for Hearts after a mistake from Alex Gogic but Hemming did well to block his shot before the ball was cleared.

VAR sent referee Muir to the screen for a second time in the game after Conor McMenamin appeared to be clipped by Aidan Denholm.

This time the official chose to stick with his on-field decision and didn’t award the penalty but the news from Easter Road meant both sets of fans were relatively content come full-time.