Jim Weir is confident St Johnstone will recover from losing key personnel and avoid being dragged into a similar Premiership battle this season.
The former skipper, who still holds the club close to his heart, had a close-up look of the Perth side on Tuesday from his vantage point on the touchline as Elgin City assistant manager.
Saints ran out 4-2 winners in the Premier Sports Cup tie and are now hoping to piece together a positive run of form in the early part of the league campaign, which begins next weekend when Hibs come calling.
Callum Davidson’s men narrowly escaped relegation last season thanks to a play-off win against Inverness.
Club legend Weir said: “I watched them a lot last year. They had lots of injuries to key players, like Wotherspoon and Kane. When you lose players like that it really has a major impact on the team.
“I was then at the Inverness game and always felt confident that they would come through it. They have again lost key players over the summer.
"I’m friends with the manager and I believe in everyone at the football club. They are good people. Supporters get unhappy and disgruntled when things aren’t going well and rightly so.
“But when you do well - like they did winning the two cups - people come fishing for your best players. That is what happened and it can just take time to recover from it.”
Weir, assistant to manager Gavin Price - who hails from Aberfeldy - felt Elgin didn’t get many breaks at Borough Briggs on Tuesday but was pleased with how the team responded to going four down.
They deservedly got on the scoresheet thanks to goals from Russell Dingwall and Kane Hester.
“We knew St Johnstone had come off the back of two disappointing results,” Weir said.
“They have a few injuries just now, weren’t at full strength, so it was probably a good time to catch them.
“Certainly in the first half, after losing the relatively early goal, we created enough really good chances. We could certainly have been level, if not ahead, at half-time.
“We were a bit disappointed we lost the goals so early in the second half. St Johnstone were well in control in terms of possession and their two off the front, Murphy and Carey, were giving our midfield a headache.
“We went 4-0 down, but there was a nice reaction from the players. We made a couple of changes and a change to the system. The reaction for the last 15 minutes made it more respectable.”
Weir added with a smile: “Callum is a friend of mine, the club means a lot to me and so do the supporters.
“But I would’ve liked to put one over on them. I wish them well in the last game.”
Two locally-based players and boyhood Saints fans lined-up for Elgin. They were former Jeanfield Swifts centre-half Jake Dolzanski and Angus Mailer, who played with the Perth club as a youngster. Weir was full of praise for both of them.
He said: “Jake has been excellent. He was excellent in pre-season and even scored a few goals.
“I’m really surprised at how well he has adapted. He missed a couple of games due to injury but he is brave.
“He has some things to learn but I’m looking forward to working with him.
“And Angus is Angus. What you need to do is turn away when he’s going in for a tackle! I actually feel the pain. He is a wholehearted player and you can play him anywhere.”
