Aberdeen 3 - 0 St. Mirren

The Dons made four changes from the side which drew at Livingston with Ryan Esson and Phil McGuire replacing the injured David Preece and Derek Whyte and the Young brothers, Darren and Derek, coming in for Cato Guntveit and Darren Mackie, who were on the bench. Darren Young took over the captain's armband.

Referee George Clyde made his intentions clear in the first minute when he yellow carded former Don Ricky Gillies for a wild tackle.

The opening play from both teams was pretty dreadful with passes going astray and neither side managing to stamp any authority on to the match. On a cold night, there was very little to excite the crowd of 9,946 who were growing ever restless as the game wore on.

Just when it looked as though the first half would end goalless, Rachid Belabed played a crisp pass out to Robbie Winters on the right. The ex-Dundee United man's cross looked to be well covered by Ludovic Roy but somehow the Frenchman managed to spill the ball, allowing Darren young to knock it into the air. It fell to Arild STAVRUM who had no trouble at all in heading home goal number eight for the season from extremely close range.

H.T. 1-0

Unfortunately, in terms of excitement, the second half took over where the first had left off and it was no real surprise when, in 58 minutes, Darren Young, who had not enjoyed the best of evenings, was replaced by Cato Guntveit.

In 68 minutes, the Dons doubled their advantage when they were awarded a penalty when defender Walker pushed Winters inside the area and was booked for his troubles. STAVRUM, who blasted his last spot kick over the bar in the cup at Alloa, made no mistake this time, with a low effort to Roy's left.

With seven minutes remaining, Roy needlessly gave away another penalty when he brought down STAVRUM, who was going away from the danger area. Again, the Norwegian hit the ball to Roy's left to claim his first treble as a Don and bringing his season's tally to ten, one ahead of Robbie Winters.

David Lilley and Chris Clark replaced the impressive Kevin McNaughton and Derek Young late on as Aberdeen move to within three points of Dundee and four points of Saturday's opponents St. Johnstone.