Cillian Sheridan scored twice in St Johnstone's 5-1 win against Hibernian

By Martin Conaghan

The script was already written for Wednesday night's Scottish Premier League encounter between St Johnstone at Hibernian at McDiarmid Park.

A win for John Hughes's would have put his third-place Hibs within two points of Celtic in the title race, while St Johnstone were expected to play to form and succumb to superior opposition.

However, two goals apiece from Liam Craig and Cillian Sheridan and a header from Kenny Deuchar handed Derek McInnes' side a memorable 5-1 victory against the visitors from Edinburgh.

BBC Scotland presenter Stuart Cosgrove, a lifelong St Johnstone fan, admitted the outcome of the match was still sinking in.

"It was phenomenal - and there's still a sense of walking on air about it," said Cosgrove.

Hibs passed up the chance to close the gap on Celtic to two points

"If you're a St Johnstone fan, it was one of our historic victories and it was great to achieve it against a Hibernian team that many people think are the best team in the SPL just now.

"It's great to be able to record a convincing and unambiguous victory."

St Johnstone are enjoying their first spell in the SPL since 2002 and earlier suffered a 3-0 defeat by Hibs at Easter Road that was reversed three days when they knocked Hughes' side out of the Co-Operative Insurance Cup by 3-1.

"I think it's the story of St Johnstone's history - they're always the nearly team or the team that didn't make it," said Cosgrove.

"And often, within the support, there's another narrative going on that they feel this season they've come close to beating a lot of teams - they beat Hibs already this season.

"It wasn't as if it was always going to be the best St Johnstone win of all time - for me, it was about which St Johnstone team would turn up - but they won very convincingly in the end."

Despite Wednesday's fantastic result, Cosgrove remains unconvinced that smaller clubs like St Johnstone can mount serious, sustained challenges to the dominance of the Old Firm - but believes consistent results can put pressure on the bigger teams.

Hibs have had that problem throughout their entire history. They can be a fantastic team going forward, but they're not the hardest team in the world to beat BBC Scotland presenter Stuart Cosgrove

"As the money situation really starts to kick in, you can see that, while Walter Smith has done a remarkable job for Rangers, he's done it by grinding out results against the backdrop of pretty poor performances," said Cosgrove.

"He's not had the resources to buy titles like previous managements."

Cosgrove was commenting on the same day as Hearts manager Jim Jefferies suggested that the other SPL clubs could narrow the gap as long as Rangers and Celtic were facing financial difficulties.

"You can sense people getting closer to Rangers in terms of money, but there needs to be a sense of consistency and grinding out results, being difficult to beat," said the media commentator.

"Hibs have had that problem throughout their entire history. They can be a fantastic team going forward, but they're not the hardest team in the world to beat.

"That St Johnstone put five past them is something John Hughes will need to look at."

Stuart Cosgrove was speaking on BBC Radio Scotland's Sports Report.

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