December to August; not quite the length of that we were hoping for as League Cup champions, but better to have reigned and lost than never to have reigned at all.
Sunday's visit to Govan posed a real test for Craig McLeish and his developing side. The dramatic shift from pragmatic nuisances to free-flowing ball players has navigated lower-league opposition, a slightly bruised Falkirk and newly-promoted St Johnstone thus far - and looked mostly effective while doing so.
Do you double down on this approach against a toiling Rangers side? Or, as in times gone by, do you bow to more cautious instincts in front of 50,000 and their richly-assembled charges?
At the weekend, this Trojan panda filled with an equal share of possession and playing out from the back was rolled up to the Ibrox gates and left for the Premiership's good-honest-fitba-in-chief Derek McInnes to drag inside. Ninety dramatic minutes and five conceded goals later, the Saints were out and Ibrox remained unsacked.
To try to paint this performance as even partially positive is futile. Accusations of naivety or more drastic criticism, however, are a little short-sighted.
Plenty of five at the back, clear your lines, low block, put your foot through it St Mirren sides have rocked up in Glasgow and taken similar scoreline pastings. Not many have had a Rangers side with World Cup stars and seven-figure prospects on the run, repeatedly, and the hosts were lucky to finish with all 11 men on the park.
Jayden Richardson's failure to get the ball out of danger before Ryan Naderi's bundled opener, and Vanja Dragojevic channelling his inner Van Persie from 25 yards, are not symptoms of naive tactics and neither was Chris Mochrie's stunner at the other end.
Weaker defending in the second half is harder to explain away and lessons will need to be learned.
On another day, Rangers might have scored 10 or conceded five. This St Mirren side, welded to their open and attacking verve as they are, will likely feature in several of the season's more dramatic scorelines.
Hopefully, in time, this outing can be reflected on as an early stumble in the development of a Saints side that can marry seat-of-your-pants excitement with a bit more defensive stability and resilience.
Postponement of what would have been a rapid return to Rangers on league duty means McLeish and his squad have a couple of weeks now to lick their wounds and prepare to host fellow cup casualties Motherwell.
Two weeks on the turf at Ralston and a couple of further additions to a squad still in transition could make a real difference.
Mark Jardine can be found at Misery Hunters