St Mirren 1 Celtic 3:Cillian Sheridan came off the bunch to score as Gordon Strachan's side put a lacklustre first half behind them to claim the points at Love Street.

The Cavan player had lost out to Georgios Samaras for a starting spot and it was he who broke the deadlock in the 64th minute.

Shunsuke Nakamura got in on the act two minutes later, before Sheridan tapped home a simple chance not long after coming on.

It was a comfortable win in the end for Strachan's side, but the game arguably turned on a first-half incident in which Hoops goalkeeper Artur Boruc was only yellow-carded by referee Willie Collum for a foul on Craig Dargo when he appeared to be the last man.

In the 15th minute Dargo raced clear of the Celtic defence in pursuit of Garry Brady's searching pass only to be sent crashing to the ground by Boruc 10 yards outside the penalty area.

The tackle itself — far less where it occurred — appeared to be reckless enough to ensure a red card.

However, to the anger of the home support, Collum issued only a yellow card to the Poland international and the visitors survived the free-kick which only added to the Buddies' ire.

The champions took advantage of their good fortune to romp away after the break although they lost a late consolation to Saints substitute Jim Hamilton, who had replaced Dennis Wyness in the closing stages.

Meanwhile, Jean-Claude Darcheville claimed his first goal of the season to set the ball rolling on Rangers' 2-0 win over Aberdeen.

Darcheville opened the scoring early in the second half before Kris Boyd sealed the win by adding to his impressive tally for the campaign.

The 2-0 victory would have helped ease the frustration of having a last-gasp winner wrongly disallowed the last time the two teams met at Pittodrie earlier in the season, with referee Craig Thomson also the man in charge on that occasion.