Kilmarnock came from a goal down to record a fine victory that takes them above champions Rangers.

That will change should Rangers win at St Johnstone tomorrow but this was a result that adds further weight to Hibs' argument that 2000-01 season is not all about the Old Firm.

The home side were always dominant and more creative, yet they had to wait until the second half for goals from Andy McLaren and Alan Mahood that cancelled out Mark Yardley's opener and took them into third place.

The first 45 minutes could have seen five or six Kilmarnock players get on the scoresheet, but none of them could get the better of Ludovic Roy.

The French goalkeeper had an outstanding return from injury and his team-mates certainly needed him to be on top form.

His most impressive save denied Alistair Mitchell whose quick feet had allowed him a turn in the box that no-one in a well-populated St Mirren defence had anticipated.

But Roy reacted quickly by sprinting off his line to block at point-blank range.

Gary Holt showed why he is a regular Scotland squad member with a tenacious display as his side's midfield workhorse and it was his tackle that set up the first good chance of the match.

Ricky Gillies delayed matters with a sliding tackle on Mitchell but Andy McLaren retrieved the ball to give Holt a clear sight of goal.

Roy saved well on that occasion and did so again later on after Holt had cantered through the home defence to latch on to a throughball.

That was a similar opportunity to one fashioned earlier by Ian Durrant when Mitchell was the man denied.

But if a pattern had developed at one end that was also the case at the other as Mark Yardley and Graham Fenton profited from their goalkeeper's excellence.

Fenton is perhaps best known for a goal scored for Blackburn a few years ago that denied his home town club Newcastle the Premiership championship.

Since then he has been mainly a Premiership fringe player and when Leicester released him in the summer he ended up at Love Street after unsuccessful trials at Barnsley and Sheffield United.

Yet it was as a creator on the right-hand side of a three man St Mirren attack that he shone, supplying Yardley for the opener.

With the ball at his feet and a defender in front of him, he feinted to go wide and instead whipped in a cross that was met by the head of the onrushing Yardley, who beat Gordon Marshall with ease.

Earlier the same two players had a dress rehearsal with Fenton crossing from a similar position to the far post where Yardley bounced his header, from considerably closer range, off the top of the crossbar.

But all that good work was undone, and most of the luck used up, within two minutes of the restart when Andy McLaren headed his fifth goal of his renaissance season as a drink and drug-free player.

Holt was the supplier from the right for a diving finish that might also interest Scotland senior boss Craig Brown.

Kilmarnock at last had control of the match and notched what turned out to be the winner on the hour.

Angus MacPherson and McLaren were involved on the right and when the latter rolled over a low cross, Mahood was there to blast it past Roy on the turn.

Garry Hay snatched at a good opportunity not long after, lifting the ball over both Roy and crossbar from a position that the injured Ally McCoist would have relished.

A flurry of substitutions saw St Mirren replace Fenton and Michael Renfraum with Jens Paeslack and Steven McGarry but it was a Kilmarnock newcomer, Christophe Cocard, who should have made it three.

McLaren sent him through on goal but he could not beat Roy in an incident that was but an echo of an now irrelevant first 45 minutes.

Another home substitute, Under-21 international Peter Canero, came even closer four minutes from the end with a shot that had the beating of Roy but not an upright.

But St Mirren's threat at the other end had long since passed and then points were already theirs.