Just when we were debating what Walter might have said in the dressing-room at half-time, a wee bit of magic from Nacho, a clever touch from Steven and a big bit of magic from Pedro turned the game. The man just doesn't know how to score run-of-the-mill goals, does he?
Suddenly from talking about falling ten points behind on Saturday, the gap is a more realistic five. It isn't really where we want to be at this stage of the season but, never having reckoned that FC Semtex are anything special, there is plenty of time to close in on them. A wee run of consecutive wins will have Gordon The Garden Gnome getting even more touchy and will surely have those who were gloating last week looking over their shoulders nervously.
All of which makes it imperative that the Minted One resists any temptation to repeat his recent money-grabbing exploits during previous transfer windows. Press speculation linking a host of clubs with the likes of Ferguson , Mendes, Broadfoot, Bougherra, Novo and Boyd is certainly worrying me and I won't sleep soundly until January has passed and we know what shape our squad will be in for the business end of the season.
And whilst it was good to come away from Inverness with a relatively comfortable 3-0 victory, thanks to Boydie's late double, the slackness of our first half performance showed that we could do with strengthening our squad in several areas. Walter was forced to persevere with the same players who had failed to impress and, while it all worked out fine in the end, without the Mendes magic it could have been a very stressful afternoon.
After all, Caley Thistle are rooted at the foot of the SPL table. Our forthcoming trip to Shittodrie and Dundee United's visit to Ibrox will be more severe tests of our title credentials before we head for the Piggery in the middle of February. If we repeat this weekend's first half performance in those fixtures I fear our championship challenge will be dead and buried.
It is in our own hands. If Murray, Bain and Smith are serious about having a real go for the flag and that lucrative automatic Champions League slot, they have to stand up and be counted, use their business acumen and football knowledge to build on what we have and make our team genuine title contenders again.
Failure to do so would be a quite disgraceful abdication of responsibility which cannot be tolerated by a support which is so close to breaking point. We so badly want to see our team back on top again, we have tolerated so much in the relatively recent past but the Custodian must not kid himself that our patience will extend too long into the future.
With a two week break until the Gers are back in league action, we can be thankful we have closed the gap to a more respectable tally and focus on our defence of the Scottish Cup. However, it would be unwise to expect St.Johnstone to be a pushover - our past two cup-ties with them were hardly confidence boosting experiences - and our players will have to be on their toes.
I'm not too sure my new Christmas prezzie white drawers would survive the sort of first half show which had me close to crapping myself at Inverness.
LITTLE BOY BLUE