He said: "The fans had been giving me it right before and during the game so it was good to get the goal. It's a bit unfair to get that treatment from the fans having played for the club for so long, but that happens in football.

"That goal was the only answer I could give them. I'd not scored against them until (Saturday). Thankfully I've got that goal now and it's helped the boys get three points."

The result lifts St Mirren to within two points of 10-placed Hamilton and Mullen believes they have a chance of escaping relegation.

He added: "It's a good start to the split, now we just need to keep going. It's a good win with Dundee losing and Hamilton drawing. We always want to put pressure on the team above us so it's a big boost for us."

With Livingston down to 10 men after the early sending off of captain Craig Halkett, Kearney made a tactical switch at half-time by taking off defender Gary MacKenzie and sending on another striker in Jackson.

And he admitted he had been tempted to make the change even earlier.

He said: "I thought about making the change after half an hour, if I'm being honest, but I fought with myself because if you do that without instruction it can become a little ramshackle for 10-15 minutes.

"So rather than do that we decided to wait until half-time so we could get across a few instructions over how it would look."

Livingston manager Gary Holt praised his players for battling for so long with just 10 men.

He said: "You feel for the lads. It was a really hot day and they played 73 minutes with 10 men and that's some shift.

"The second goal takes the stuffing out of them. But the effort and commitment they put in was first class."

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