St Mirren captain Stephen McGinn believes that St Mirren's 3-2 win over Queen of the South in December was the catalyst for their excellent run of form.
The Buddies extended their lead at the top to 14 points after a 2-0 win over Queen of the South on Saturday - a win that saw Saints make it 8 wins from their last 9 in the league.
But it was the win at Palmerston in December which the skipper feels helped St Mirren push on.
It's a run that has saw Jack Ross pick up the Ladbrokes Championship Manager of the Month award two months in a row, while McGinn picked up Player of the Month for January.
Speaking to the press after the award, the captain said: "We had a really tough afternoon against Dumbarton at the start of December and since then we've not looked back.
We've really taken off and made it hard for the teams below us to keep up with us and just delighted with the way things are going.
"The game that stands out for me in the recent run is Queen of the South away. 2-0 down after five minutes at a really tough venue it was almost the making of the recent run we've been on. You look at each other and ask who is willing to dig in to pull out a result. The way we did that I think after that day you really start to believe in the people around you.
"You respect that teams have still got games in hand, we've still got to play each team in the league again, so you don't want to dip. I've been in the game long enough to know once you get into a rut it's hard to get out it. We just need to try and avoid that, keep doing what we are doing and keep being as clinical as we have been."
Much has been written about The Buddies excellent form in the latter part of last season's campaign which saw the side come from being eight points adrift at the bottom of the league in February to completing the great escape and securing Championship survival.
McGinn admits the last 12 months have been a dream and says captaining the side to promotion would be hugely gratifying if Saints get over the line.
This time last year we'd just been to Dumbarton and drawn 2-2 and had a massive game to come at Somerset [against Ayr United] in the league.
"It's the sort of stuff that you probably couldn't have made up. If you were asked to dream about a scenario it would have been this. It's been an amazing 12 months. It's been such a strange one as well because there is really not been any time to enjoy it. It'll be amazing to look back on it in a few years if we can get over the line.
"It was a lot harder to look at the league last season," he continued. "It was hard when you were looking above you and you're needing results to go your way. I always go back to the day we won at Queen of the South last season and I think Ayr had won at Dunfermline and Raith had won at home.
"In situations like that it is really tough and the chase is far tougher than being chased. It's in our hands. We know it's lovely to look at the table and we know if we win enough games till the end of the season we'll get to enjoy looking at it more often.
"I've been in situations in my career where you can't buy a win and you don't know where your next win is coming from. For us it's the other way and it's been almost like that since last January. Any game we've lost since then we feel as if we've let ourselves down and we've not been at our best. It's an amazing habit to get into especially at home.
"The boys absolutely love playing at home because we win games here. Any time we've dropped points here it's been almost a catastrophe. It's a horrible feeling leaving here having not won because we are so used to winning here. We just need to keep ticking games off, keep adding points to our total and if we do that we know we'll be hard to catch.
"When I left it was a good Premier League club. It was really threatening the top six, getting to semi-finals of national competitions. I'd be really proud to be part of taking the club back to that level."
Buddievision subscribers can watch Stephen's press conference here.
