Ian Murray stepped into the centre of the Hibernian defence and the job of skippering the side on Saturday, his partnership with Sol Bamba proving to be a solid barrier in the final analysis although for the first quarter hour it all looked very fragile.

Murray moved into more familiar territory having played at right-back six days earlier, and looked much more comfortable in particular when the side settled down after that opening 15 minute pummelling from a St Johnstone side who will be wondering when the breaks are going to arrive their way. Certainly the visitors gave Murray and his team-mates a less comfortable afternoon that the scoreline suggested: "I thought they played very well and 3-0 was perhaps an unjustified score-line. With the calibre of the players we have got up front then we know that if we kept it tight at the back then we will get goals and it was important that bounce back after last week.

"We knew that if we gave Anthony Stokes the right service then he would score, although to be fair the goals he scored were made of his own accord - but once we get better service into our strikers, Deeks and Nishy as well, then we will score a lot of goals. Anthony has come here and had a hard start with a few tough games but he showed his quality against St Johnstone and hopefully that can continue.

"Anthony obviously knows the gaffer from his time at Falkirk before and for whatever reason he never worked for him down south. He got a big move very early in his career and sometimes it can be very hard to live up to that standard of the Premiership. We also have Liam Miller now who went from Celtic to Manchester United, perhaps the biggest club in the world. You can see the quality that rubbed off on him a little bit after working at a club that big. He then went to Sunderland and struggled a little bit but he is now up here and hoping to re-establish himself. Both Liam and Anthony know that there are good players here they will have to do well to get into our side."

It was perhaps the very quality Hibernian have in attack this season that was the difference between the sides on Saturday, three strikes of the highest calibre proving the undoing of an impressive St Johnstone side who will likely prove a thorn in the side of many teams in the SPL this season: "Any defenders playing against Stokes can know that he can be having a quite game and not doing much and then he will go and score. St Johnstone looked very comfortable against us until he pulled one out of the bag.

"Derek got a similar one and it was 2-0 at half time and St Johnstone went in down heartened. Stokes' free kick was probably our only shot in the second half and as I said before St Johnstone will be disappointed because the score-line flatters us a bit. But when we get all our strikers firing on all cylinders then hopefully we can push on from there. We're in a pretty good place when free kicks are awarded in dangerous areas as well - I am sure Derek would have wanted to take the one Anthony scored from on Saturday because he has already scored one against Falkirk earlier on this season. Now Stokesy has scored the last one, it will be interesting if we get one on Tuesday to see who is taking it. With Zemmama also coming on it may develop into a cat fight to see who gets the ball - but my money is on Deeks!"

The win put Hibernian back up the table into third slot, and went some way to repaying the Hibernian support who had travelled to Hamilton in large numbers only to be sorely disappointed: "We were disappointed with ourselves and we let the gaffer down badly in that game. It has been a big week for us, really intense, because we only had six days to get ready for St Johnstone instead of the usual seven. We went out to win the game first and foremost and then to put on a performance, and although he did not play that well we got the win - which was the most important thing. It sets us up nicely as we are now sitting third in the table.

"For the game on Tuesday we know that we can step up another couple of gears. St Johnstone will come to Easter Road and will perhaps set up in the same sort of way that they did on Saturday. We know that we are in for a big game as they will be looking for revenge, but we have to be professional and make sure that does not happen. We will be looking to go on and win the match again."