MARK McGhee correctly identified where his most pressing priorities lay.
Half-an-hour of Stuart Duff at full back on the opening day was more than enough to convince the Dons manager to break open the Pittodrie pot.
His only problem was how to spread what little jam remained therein thickly enough to whet the appetite of any player genuinely good enough to represent improvement.
So, where his predecessor would have raided the transfer truck-stop for some hi-carb English Premier League loanees or low-nutrition foreign amateurs, McGhee instead headed for the pantry of Pittodrie coaches Neil Cooper and Lenny Taylor – and found it awash with fruits ripe for top-team picking.
Jonathan Crawford will be both proud and relieved, following an early second-half brainstorm, to have been part of a shutout on his Dons debut – thanks to manful coaxing of their young charge by the experienced Jerel Ifil and Richard Foster.
The understandable cramp attack showed that Crawford is not yet ready to stitch up a more regular slot. But, on the other side of defence, Stirling Smith, perhaps possessing both better physical attributes and sharper game intelligence, will be aching for his chance now the precedent is set.
But both stand in the queue behind the estimable Fraser Fyvie. Stocky and solid, Fyvie, much like Peter Pawlett, displays the cool alertness of a player who knows that his talents, however rare, will not carry him far on their own.
There is little that Fyvie is unwilling, or unable, to do.
With finances placing Aberdeen in the Catch-22 situation that any player they can reasonably afford is unlikely to be of the standard required, blooding youths is imperative.
As well as providing the first XI with cheap labour while significantly increasing the squad’s resale value, there is no better selling point for Fyvies of the future than a well-trodden path to senior success.
Hibs set the bar on both counts and it is an example Aberdeen must follow in the post-Setanta age.
Chris Crighton is the editor of Dons fanzine The Red Final
(c) 2009 Press and Journal
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