Hearts 1 St Johnstone 2

From WILLIE COCHRANE at Tynecastle

LIAM CRAIG tagged pal Peter Enckelman's stunning spot-kick stop as save of the season material then admitted he DREADED the idea of his keeper facing a penalty.

Craig watched in awe as Enckelman pulled off an incredible one-handed block to stop Jamie Hamill cancelling out the Saints ace's early opener.

Dave Mackay then killed the Jambos off with a late penalty of his own before Mehdi Taouil bagged a last-gasp consolation. Craig knows the outcome hinged on that piece of magic from Enckelman — someone he didn't always have down as a spot-kick specialist.

He said: "I have to be honest, before the Scottish Cup semi-final last season we were hoping it wouldn't go to penalties because Peter didn't save too many when we were practising them in training!

"He could now get save of the season for that. I've not seen it back yet, but it's definitely going to be up there.

"I don't want to be harsh on him, but that's his job. As important as it is to score goals, he's there to do that and today he's definitely helped.

"If they had scored the penalty then the crowd were right behind them and they would have been on the up again.

"It was a massive point in the game and Peter stood up and saved it well.

"He made a great save from their penalty which gave us the boost we needed as they were on top.

"After that Dave Mackay stuck our penalty away and luckily we went on to win the game."

Craig gave Saints the lead after only three minutes when he punished a mix-up in the Jambos defence.

Keeper Marian Kello rushed to the edge of his box for the ball but defender Andy Webster got there first.

He could only knock it to Craig though, leaving the Saints midfielder to take a touch and send a perfect lob over Kello and into the back of the net.

Hearts saw a lot of the ball after that with playmaker Taouil on top form, but they struggled to create clear chances.

Marcus Haber thought he'd made it two for Saints with a stinging volley midway through the first half only for Kello to stick out a hand and turn it around the post.

Hearts went for it after the break, with striker Stephen Elliott replacing stopper Webster as boss Paulo Sergio shuffled his pack.

The Irishman almost grabbed a leveller with his first touch, but his header from Hamill's cross flew agonisingly wide.

Hero Enckelman then thwarted the sub with a good save to keep out his snapshot as the Jambos pushed hard for an equaliser. It looked like they would get it in 62 minutes when ref Stevie O'Reilly ruled that David McCracken had pulled John Sutton down in the box.

It wasn't the best spot-kick from Hamill but it still looked like finding the net until the diving Enckelman stuck out his trailing arm and turned it wide.

That seemed to knock the stuffing out of Hearts — and with 15 minutes to play they found themselves 2-0 down.

Ryan McGowan's poor clearance was charged down, leaving Murray Davidson to charge into the box before he was stopped in his tracks by Eggert Jonsson. O'Reilly again pointed to the spot and Mackay showed Hamill how it should be done by giving Kello no chance.

Taouil gave the Jambos a glimmer of hope five minutes from the end when he cracked a stunning 25-yarder past Enckelman for his first Jambos goal.

Hearts then let their frustration — perhaps at losing, perhaps at playing without their full pay yet again — spill over as Adrian Mrowiec and Ryan Stevenson started arguing and had to be separated after squaring up.

Enckelman then made sure Saints took the points at the death with another brilliant save, this time to turn a hooked volley from Elliott over the bar. Craig admitted: "That was another really good save, but Peter's an excellent keeper and we expect that from him.

"Look back to last season, we didn't score goals, but Encks played most of the games and the fact we still comfortably finished eighth was down to how many clean sheets we kept.

"If you look at our away record this season, we haven't let many goals in either and it's great when you've got a keeper like that and the likes of Frazer Wright, Steven Anderson, MacKay and Callum Davidson in front of him." Saints boss Lomas hailed midfielder Davidson, who played brilliantly despite his brother being involved in a car crash on Friday night.

Lomas, who, like Sergio had to watch the game from the stand as he served a touchline ban, said: "Special praise to Murray.

"To put the shift in that he did was very special.

"His brother is OK, comfortable, but he's got a few nasty injuries.

"He was poorly through the night and for Murray to have that on his mind, he was different class today."