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It's a nice enough town but doesn't give you the impression it is a hotbed of football, although we did find one Saints fan to talk to in a bar. More likely our conversations were with Canadians from a pipe band who had marched and played their way through town ahead of the highland games.
A lot of Burnley fans arrived by the evening and there were many more by Saturday as we swelled the McDiarmid Stadium by around 700 in an otherwise poorly attended game to watch a Burnley team who were without three members due to call ups for Scotland. They couldn't play so there perhaps should be some explanation as to how Darren Fletcher was given the go ahead to play for Manchester United a day later.
Graham Alexander, Steven Caldwell and Steven Fletcher were all out as were both Michael Duff and Tyrone Mears who were injured. The five of them, along with Alex MacDonald, watched the game from the stand.
With Remco van der Schaaf nowhere to be seen it left us with nineteen players including fit again Martin Paterson who played for the first time since America.
Brian Jensen, a certain for the team at Stoke, was in goal again in front of Richard Eckersley, Clarke Carlisle, David Edgar and Stephen Jordan. Adopting the 4-4-2 formation used so much this pre-season we had Chris Eagles, Joey Gudjonsson, Chris McCann and Robbie Blake across the middle with Martin Paterson and Steven Thompson up front.
If we were expecting something a lot better than the difficult game at Kilmarnock then we were to be disappointed. We didn't start at all well and the home side could have gone in front on a number of occasions during the first half.
Much travelled Collin Samuel hit a shot just wide from outside the box and twice we had to rely on Jensen. He made one very good save to tip over a shot from the left and then got down well to save again.
At the other end Paterson had one effort whilst McCann looked a certain scorer when played in only to get his shot too close to the goalkeeper.
Half time came at 0-0, but it hadn't been good from the Clarets who were surely hoping for a good win to take into the new season. We were nearly a goal behind in the first minute when Carlisle and Jensen came close to combining as they'd done at Killie but this time we got away with it.
We got forward occasionally but never looked as though we might cause them any problems. Again Coyle made changes and it was a double substitution that changed the game midway through the second half. Eagles, who had not had the best of afternoons, was replaced by Wade Elliott, whilst a reshuffle saw Fernando Guerrero come on for Paterson.
Both of them made a difference. Elliott twice got in good crosses but it was Guerrero grabbing the attention again as he played down the left hand side right in front of the Burnley fans. He made some good runs, he succeeded with one trick and I'm still not sure how he did it, and then wooed the away fans with step overs the likes of which we've not seen at Burnley since Steve Jones.
During this spell we could so easily have gone in front and would have done but for some very strange decisions. We had a Jay Rodriguez goal chalked out for reasons unknown and when Edgar was hauled back as he got to a cross the decision strangely went the other way.
Still, if anyone was going to win it now it was surely Burnley. However, Peter McDonald got into our box. He was fouled by Christian Kalvenes and from the resulting penalty Paul Sheerin scored what proved to be the only goal.
It had been another disappointing afternoon and probably not what any of us wanted, including the players and manager, from the last pre-season game.
The two days in Scotland had been good, the games not so good, but the weather was brilliant and the two games were lifted by our little Ecuadorian winger. But that's pre-season over with now, the games and results have counted for nothing. They do from this coming Saturday and that's when we need to step up our game.
Bring on the Premier League.
The teams were;
St. Johnstone: Alan Main, David Mackay (Gary Irvine), Danny Grainger (Steven Anderson), Jody Morris (Martin Hardie), Stuart McCaffrey, Graham Gartland, Murray Davidson (Kevin Moon), Liam Craig (Paul Sheerin), Gavin Swankie (Peter MacDonald), Collin Samuel (Steven Milne), Filipe Morais (The Good Doctor Kenny Deucher). Sub not used: Euan McLean.
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Richard Eckersley, Clarke Carlisle, David Edgar, Stephen Jordan (Christian Kalvenes 75), Chris Eagles (Fernando Guerrero 64), Joey Gudjonsson (Brian Easton 75), Chris McCann (Kevin McDonald 58), Robbie Blake, Martin Paterson (Wade Elliott 64), Steven Thompson (Jay Rodriguez 58). Sub not used: Diego Penny.
Referee: William Collum.
Attendance: 2,811 (including 700 Clarets).