Gary Holt insists a timekeeping mistake rather than a dressing down was to blame for Livingston's early emergence for the second half of their 3-1 win over St Mirren as he hailed the Lions' powers of recovery.

Livi were trailing 1-0 at the interval courtesy of Alfie Jones' maiden goal for the struggling Buddies. They returned to the field several minutes ahead of schedule after the break, with many onlookers assuming that was down to a half-time rocket from the boss.

And they proceeded to roar back to win, with Scott Pittman, Ryan Hardie and Craig Sibbald finding the net.

While Holt was thrilled by the response of his players, he is adamant there was no need for raised voices at the break.

He said: "I only sent them out early in the second half by mistake. There's a clock on the wall in the dressing room at it said 3:58, so I thought 'Time to send them out'. I forget that the first half had overrun with a couple of injuries.

"I was calm at half-time. It is really tough to change things at half-time without being too dramatic, too drastic and just taking players off. It's about giving them the chance to rectify what went wrong.

"We need to play at a tempo that suits us, gain momentum and get on the front foot. In the second half, you saw what Livingston are about.

"The days are gone when you can rant and rave. You need to coax a performance out of the players and get them buying into what they believe in. It was really pleasing to see how they responded in the second half."

St Mirren boss Oran Kearney was scathing in his criticism of his players following their capitulation in the second period, questioning their "bottle" and admitting he was "embarrassed" by the manner of their collapse.

In a further blow for the Northern Irishman, he has also been left sweating over the fitness of key defender Paul McGinn, who had to be withdrawn after 10 minutes following a nasty clash with Livi skipper Craig Halkett.

Kearney said: "We're not sure how long Paul will be out for. I think he took an elbow and I'm not sure how he's looking. We'll need to trust the doctor with that one. He will tell us whether it is concussion, and at what level.

"There is a huge amount of protocol out there at the moment regarding the level of damage so we're going to need to play that one by ear."