Nine games into the season Hibs were undefeated with six wins and three draws, now they have won one in 12. Tommy Craig, the caretaker manager who is paid to know, is as puzzled as the bemused support. Safe to say his job application has been shredded.

This is to take nothing away from St Mirren who were stuffy, committed and deadly - all the attributes missing in their opponents.

They added two goals to the paltry 11 they had amassed so far - and if the two were visitor-assisted so what? - and put a further three points between themselves and Gretna, climbing above the other Edinburgh side in the process. Crisis in the capital? Surely an understatement.

Hibs, though, mirrored the conditions. Deplorable. They were unable to produce even one incisive pass throughout. St Mirren goalkeeper Chris Smith had to field a couple of half-hit shots which were straight at him in the second half, but where was his opponents' fire? Doused, not by the rain, but a lack of self-confidence, if you swallow the Craig line.

"It takes courage, bravery and downright doggedness to get back into the game," he mused. Quite so. But there was no-one in a green jersey with those qualities.

Two incidents surely summed up the abysmal nature of Hibs' performance. First, Rob Jones passed the ball out of the park when under no pressure, then Alan O'Brien, hitherto anonymous, took a corner and knocked the ball to Saints striker Stewart Kean standing in glorious isolation 20 yards back.

The weather was primeval. The rain battered off the tin roof of the stand creating an aural blizzard of white noise, the view through a fuzzy curtain of swirling water was soft-edged, although the reality of the comedic first goal was distinct enough.

It came in the fourth minute. Alex Burke, a boisterous and lively presence on the left for St Mirren, touched a short pass back to Ian Maxwell who battered over what was clearly intended to be a cross.

That at least is what the Hibs goalkeeper Yves Ma-Kalambay believed (or My-Calamity as he was shortly to become). He was standing just outside his six-yard box as the Saints defender sent in his looping left-footer which kissed the inside of the right post and shook the rain off the rigging.

"I couldn't tell you he meant it," said manager Gus MacPherson, "and judging by the surprised look on his face he didn't."

It was a catastrophic goal to concede and the big goalkeeper was similarly limp at St Mirren's second, although Jones compounded the felony.

At times Hibs' play and attempted neat inter-passing moves seemed as irrelevant and futile as tap-dancing on quicksand but there was really no excuse for the centre-back to attempt a back pass to his goalkeeper when he was under pressure.

Ma-Kalambay was less than wholehearted in his attempt to clear with a sliding leg when he could have booted the ball and his challenger, Kean, into the stand.

The ball broke back to the forward with the goalkeeper clearly satisfied that he had done all he could. Kean had time to tame the ball, look for the arriving Gary Mason to sweep the ball home from eight yards for his first goal for the club.

There had been much competition in midfield but little decisive intent on goal. Hibs had a couple of shots past either post and for the home team Garry Brady had sizzled the crossbar from 25 yards after yet another set-up from Burke. But the two goals always looked enough.

The last song played at the break, which greeted the players as they waded back on, was singularly appropriate. Umbrella by Rhianna. But the torrent did ease for a while before reappearing with a vengeance. The same could not be said of Hibs. While they might have been expected to show some concern about their evident plight they continued to be as insipid and passionless as they had been in the first half.

They did get a goal when it did not matter, Mikael Antoine-Curier rounding Smith, who seemed to get a despairing touch, and then back-heeling home.

This provoked the first real spurt of passion as the Hibs forward threatened to banjo a defender in his desire to retrieve the ball and return it to the centre-circle.

"It was a slack error in the end," said MacPherson "and that was about the only one in 90 minutes."

The manager refused to comment about the state of Hibernian and assert that in recent home games his team has played as well without getting the breaks.

Craig must surely have seen his chances of becoming manager at Easter Road washed away in the Love Street rain.

The sole victory in a dozen encounters has been against the division's punchbags, Gretna.

"I'm in charge of the team until instructed otherwise," Craig said later, claiming under persistent questioning, that he "hadn't even thought about the job".

He was as unconvincing in attempting to explain the lack of fight in his team.