No spoiling St Johnstone's title party as bumper crowd watches trophy lift

This time around they sat top of the Championship from day one and finally got their hands on the trophy in front of a bumper crowd at McDiarmid Park after sealing the title five days prior away to Dunfermline. They saw off a dogged Raith Rovers side 2-0 to make sure their title party wasn't spoiled by the men from Kirkcaldy and, by doing so, ended their opponents chances of finishing in the play-offs.

It's Scottish Cup finalists Dunfermline who will take up that final spot along with Partick Thistle and Arbroath. Saints though are, unquestionably, deserved winners of Scottish football's second tier and will be a welcome addition back to the top flight.

The Perth side now have one game remaining (away to Ayr United) before an important summer where they will need to bring in a few new faces to make this a squad capable of pushing on. They'll be losing star winger Josh McPake to Hearts and there is a noticeable lack of recent top-flight experience amongst their current crop of players.

They have the backbone of a very capable Premiership side but will be probably need a touch more experience, a little bit more grit and just a splash of X-Factor if they want to avoid a fight for survival. The lack of physicality was something that Raith looked to exploit when they came to the Fair City.

The first 20-25 minutes showed signs of a promising affair with both teams creating good chances before Jamie Gullan's penalty kick put the champions 1-0 up. That incident seemed to change the tempo from a free flowing, end-to-end contest into the sort of match the Caledonia Reds rugby union team might have played on this ground many years ago.

Raith had certainly brought a physicality to the game throughout but that first booking was followed by five more, three in total for each side, before the break. It boiled over on the touchline as well, with managers Simo Valakari and Dougie Imrie exchanging words.

The game was reaching fever pitch and you felt all of the venom that had come to the surface in Gullan's free-kick at the edge of the penalty area. The former Hibs man almost sent the ball through the back of the net and into the North Stand when he made it 2-0.

If nothing else, that bite that Rovers were brining and Saints trying to respond to looked set to make for an intriguing second half. Alas, we were instead offered up a fairly drab 45 minutes that lacked both the early quality and later aggression of the first half.

St Johnstone will not care one bit though, they never looked like giving up the three points and it was just a case of holding on through to the full time whistle so they could get their title party started.

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