Steve Lomas hopes St Johnstone players get credit for win

Superstitious Lomas will wear his lucky Saints scarf at Tynecastle next week

St Johnstone boss Steve Lomas followed his debut draw at Ibrox with a win over Hibernian and hopes that his players will be given credit for the victory.

"Our boys deserve an enormous amount of praise," the Northern Irishman told BBC Scotland after the home game.

"They probably didn't get enough praise last week. It was more down to Rangers having an off day. It is disappointing, especially when you dominate.

"We stopped them playing and imposed our game on them. Today was fantastic."

Hibernian had their new manager Pat Fenlon watching from the McDiarmid Park stand and would have been hopeful that an away win was on the cards when Richie Towell's shot put the Leith side ahead on 26 minutes.

However, Francisco Sandaza and Marcus Haber put the Perth Saints 2-1 up at the interval and their lead was extended by Dave MacKay's free-kick just after the re-start.

Lomas added: "I'm delighted. We knew that Hibs would come out fighting and they didn't disappoint.

"In the second half we totally controlled the game and we should've had two or three more goals just to make it more comfortable."

Saints were without striker Cillian Sheridan for most of the match. He suffered a hamstring injury eight minutes into the contest and was replaced by the Canadian Haber.

"One man's misfortune is another man's fortune and Marcus came on and grabbed his chance with both hands," said Lomas.

"If big Marcus starts playing to his attributes he will be a handful for anybody."

St Johnstone sit in fourth place in the Scottish Premier League and next face fifth-place Hearts.

The manager continued: "We said before the game it was a good point at Rangers but it would be great if we won today and now we go to Tynecastle with belief that we can get something.

"If we apply ourselves the same way we have done the last two games, we'll do all right."