Tommy Wright watched Steven MacLean score a hat-trick in his final game for St Johnstone and praised the player for his service to the club and "perfect" sign-off.

MacLean starred in his side's 5-1 win at St Johnstone, scoring three times in his 203rd game for the club. The forward has agreed to join Hearts in the summer and Hamilton's artificial surface and a pending suspension meant the match at Fir Park was his last for Saints.

Wright subbed the veteran off, ensuring a standing ovation from the St johnstone support and afterwards he sopke about the player in glowing terms.

The manager said: "I said to him in the dugout, 'Did you go to bed last night thinking, right, I'll go out with a hat-trick?'.

"He said, 'No, I couldn't sleep'.

"In many ways it's the perfect send-off for him. In many ways for me as a manager, he has got his hat-trick and David McMillan, who has had a torrid time since he signed, has come on and scored a wonderful goal as well.

"But it was a great team performance and fully deserved and for 'Macca' to cap it off with a hat-trick is perfect for him and perfect for the fans. I think they came down in numbers to see him off and he gave them a perfect send-off.

"Players don't stay at clubs if they're not doing their job. He has given me everything and been a leader for me, and I'll miss him. But he knows that he goes with my good wishes because he doesn't owe me a thing, and the move to Hearts is just too big a move at his age to turn down.

"There is no ill feeling, I wish him well. But he knows time doesn't stand still, I will have to move on and hopefully we will do that."

Motherwell boss Stephen Robinson made a couple of changes to his side with one eye on the upcoming Scottish Cup final and wrote off the result as an uncommon insstance of poor defending from his team.

"I actually thought we started quite brightly, had a couple of half-chances, moved the ball really well," he said.

"But that's the first time in 36 games I have seen us defend like that.

"We have lost games where I thought we can be better, but every individual error got punished. So hopefully we got them all out of the way in the one game.

"Credit to St Johnstone, they took their chances, and Steven MacLean was excellent, but I'm not sure he'll score any easier goals than that, with the way we defended.

"The positive I will take out of that is I know that's not how we defend. You don't get 18 clean sheets defending like that."