The Saints team was pretty much as expected, with Paul Gallacher, Lee Mair and Michael Higdon handed debuts. There were no wingers in the team, a bit of a surprise considering we had two big strikers!
The first real action happened after a quarter of an hour when Thomson lost control of the ball then flattened Paddy Cregg while trying to win it back. I wasn't at the game but the radio commentary suggests it was a shocking challenge and worthy of the red card - although many people associated with Saints disagreed.
We'd started well but were always going to struggle after that. Thankfully, Hibs had helpfully decided to start Yves Ma-Kalambay, who is usually quite handy for us. Sure enough, just before the break he messed up a passback and Andy Dorman was able to set up Stephen McGinn to score in the ensuing chaos.
Having got ourselves in front, it was important we didn't mess things up - advice that wasn't headed as Hibs drew level within a minute. Some poor defending allowed John Rankin to set up David Wotherspoon to score.
After that, it was pretty much one way traffic aside form the odd breakway. It looked as if we'd manage to cling on to a point after repelling what Hibs had to throw at us, but with just over five minutes to go sub Benji headed home a corner. We had half chances to draw level after that but failed to do anything with them.
Not a great start to the season, but there were things to be positive about. For starters, we scored, and we also did pretty well with 10 men.