Against Hearts a fortnight ago the players showed a willingness to match up to a hard physical team at the upper reaches of the league and against Dundee they played some fine entertaining football that had the match almost won by half-time.
Those performances were not what characterised the team in the first half of the season and as a result even those fans who were reluctant to welcome the return of Mark McGhee will admit that progress has been made.
Despite the good work we are only one point ahead of Kilmarnock and we face the daunting prospect of a trip to Parkhead on Saturday. On the other hand a mere five points separate us from Hamilton in sixth place. The tightly packed nature of the mid-table teams will make for some interesting weeks ahead.
While the debut of the young centre back Ben Hall rightly attracted praiseworthy attention it was a treat to see David Clarkson make a telling appearance (the first since August). The sight of Clarkson, Lasley and Hammell together celebrating Pearson’s late goal took us all back in time.
The festive fixtures have us facing Celtic (A), Dundee United (A), St Johnstone (H) and Hamilton (H) before the cup game against Cove rangers on 9 January. By then we’ll be well into the second half of the league campaign and it will be clear to the manager if squad changes are needed. You never know, we may even have started a cup run!