Michael Weir: Hibs' defeat was just a bad day at office

Hibs dejected players look on after the defeat by St Johnstone. Pic: SNS

I didn’t expect us to lose given the form both teams were in before the match, but St Johnstone are still a very experienced side, and, outwith Celtic, all the teams in the Premiership are realistically capable of beating each other on any given day.

The first half was a struggle for both teams, with no real fluency, and then, in the second half, Saints sat in and tried to hit us on the break. We just weren’t able to impose ourselves on the game, although we did improve a bit after they got their first goal.

Once they got in front, it was always going to be difficult for us because they’re a well organised side and they were clearly desperate for the points.

It’s a sign of how well we are doing that other Premiership teams are coming to try and stifle us, and we need to adapt to that in terms of being a wee bit more creative when we get ourselves into promising positions.

I’m not overly worried about anything I saw on Saturday because it’s come on the back of a four-game winning run. I think it was a case of St Johnstone deserving credit rather than Hibs deserving major criticism. We’ve had one bad result in five games in a competitive league, so I’m certainly not of a mind to be too hard on the team or the manager.

The main bonus is that Aberdeen and Rangers also lost. There will always be ups and downs over the course of a league campaign, and we’ve had our fair share of positive days this season. We’re still well capable of getting ourselves on another winning run, and hopefully that starts away to Hamilton on Saturday.

They’ve had a great result at Ibrox on Saturday and they beat us earlier this season but we’re entitled to fancy our chances of going through there and winning if we are able to play at the level we did in our previous four games.

We’ve had an unexpected setback at the weekend - now it’s just a case of getting back on the horse as quickly as possible and trying to get back to showing the level of consistency that served us so well before the international break.