04/10/2025 – KILMARNOCK (A)

On our return to the venue of our recent League Cup Quarter Final success, Rugby Park was the scene of underwhelming disappointment as opposed to mass celebration on this occasion.

However, we should remember that the team can’t play well every week or take points from every game, that is just life supporting any football club.

We’ve probably been spoiled of late in this respect, this after all is only our 2nd defeat in the last 19 matches, form unmatched as a top flight club since the 1925/26 season.

Factoring in most people can restore such detailed information from around 10 years old, only 300 people alive in the world today would be able to remember the last time we achieved this, if of course they are even interested in Scottish football, never mind St. Mirren.

Back to Saturday, and although it would have been hard to predict such a performance, I think we would agree it was more likely to happen at Rugby Park than any other ground in Scotland.

We haven’t won at the Ayrshire stadium since 2013, which was our penultimate game on grass at that stadium before they decided that football shouldn’t be played on a natural surface, but on plastic. That isn’t a coincidence.

Fans of clubs with plastic surfaces get very angry when anyone mentions this, but the fact is no club has ever changed from grass to plastic due to fans demanding it, and if it was genuinely better not having grass, this sort of fan led movement for plastic would be a regular occurrence worldwide. No protest has ever existed, anywhere.

Saturday was made even more difficult by the wind, which followed the embers of Storm Amy the night before. So bad were the conditions, the referee allowed several free kicks to be taken with the ball moving, as it simply would not stay still on the surface.

Had a goal been scored from one of these occasions, it would have been very interesting to see what would have happened, as the referee clearly allowed play to start and continue, but equally VAR could rightfully disallow.

The wind was so bad in fact, that Kilmarnock players regularly fell over, often on multiple occasions, and Nick Walsh, the poor referee, was fooled into thinking they had been fouled. 17 times he awarded a free kick to the home side, the majority the result of the wind blowing over a Kilmarnock player.

However, the conditions were the same for both sides, and the Ayrshire team most definitely coped with both the pitch and conditions significantly better than we did, a skill in itself, and added to that won probably all the individual battles, with perhaps only Jayden Richardson in the 2nd half giving the home side anything to think about.

The game was lost in the first half, ironically after we started the match well and had our only period of domination in the first 15 minutes, before Killie took over and won with almost complete comfort, it has to be conceded.

David Watson opened the scoring after 26 minutes, the impressive Kilmarnock midfielder suffered more than most with keeping his feet with that wind, but had more desire than any Saints player to get deep into our penalty area and knock home a George save after Bruce Anderson had broken our flimsy off-side trap.

A poor goal to lose from our point of view, and the second just eight minutes later was even worse. With the ball seemingly blowing out of play at pace near the dug-outs, we switched off completely, allowing Bruce Anderson to chase and knock a pass down the line to James Brown.

The full back whipped in cross that giant striker Marcus Deckers headed home unchallenged at the back post. Easy for Killie, who negotiated the rest of the match without any incident or even a shot on target from us.

There is therefore no issue with the final result, Kilmarnock fully deserved to win, and we just need to write this off and get back to what we are very good at a week on Saturday at home to Aberdeen, who recorded their first league goal and win of the season against Dundee at weekend.

Last week, we didn’t miss Mark O’Hara, Marcus Fraser or Keanu Baccus. The same can’t be said against Killie, who proved to be a significant step up from Dundee as expected. Baccus did play the 2nd half at Rugby Park, but was nowhere near fit as Stephen Robinson stated after the match. Hopefully all three are ready soon.

We know this team and manager, and we should all be confident we will get a reaction, so if you can, get down to St Mirren Park after the international break and support the team.

COYS!

Kilmarnock Players of the Match:

5 points – Jayden Richardson

3 points – Shamal George

1 point – Evan Mooney

Check our the Player of the Season race here –

PLAYER OF THE SEASON 2025/26