Dundee 1 St Johnstone 1: Shaun Rooney the second half saviour for Saints

Shaun Rooney was the St Johnstone saviour.

The towering full-back’s second half header ensured Dundee were unable to make up any ground in the race for Premiership survival.

Jordan Marshall had fired the Dens Park hosts into an early lead and Saints struggled to work their way into the game.

But Rooney, renowned for his scoring exploits in cup competition last term, popped up with the all-important leveller before celebrating wildly with travelling fans.

More than 2000 occupied the away end, many of whom had decided the plan of action was to gain early entry to seek out the best vantage point.

That meant, as the Saints squad appeared out the tunnel for the warm-up just after 2.15pm, they were greeted by a thunderous round of applause.

Excitement was building and seats soon became occupied as more and more filtered in from the various local watering holes around the City of Discovery. The time for toasting doubles had past, this was all about Premiership survival.

Saints were almost toasting a Jamie McCart opener in the first few minutes but his looping attempt landed on the roof of the net. Other than that, the start had been a shaky one and Dundee soon had the lead.

On 10 minutes, the ball was worked to advanced full-back Marshall and he made no mistake with a powerful, low left-footed drive from the edge of the box.

Home tails were up and they quickly went in search of another. Thankfully, McCart provided a crucial covering block to divert Paul McGowan’s strike behind for a corner.

Saints appeared devoid of making meaningful forward passes and travelling supporters were starting to grow restless.

Manager Callum Davidson had again trusted Nadir Ciftci up top and he almost levelled proceedings with a fierce strike from