They have put Celtic out of the Scottish Communities League Cup and halted the momentum of high-flying Inverness this week.

However, Gary Teale is still hungry for St Mirren to maintain their winning habit.

The Buddies take on St Johnstone tomorrow afternoon in the William Hill Scottish Cup fifth round and the winger is determined to round off the week by putting their name in the hat for the next round.

"It's all about momentum," he said. "Suddenly, you have a couple of decent results and you can feel the confidence grow.

"We had to weather a bit of a storm against Inverness in the second period, but we stuck to our task and got three points.

"You can feel the belief in the team and we're going into the game against St Johnstone believing we can keep going.

"The cup competitions are so important to us. It's not just that they are a break from the SPL, but in terms of revenue they can be really beneficial to the club.

"We have got ourselves into one final and it would be nice now to see how far we can go in the Scottish Cup too."

While the results this week have been excellent, Teale also believes that the performances have been there as well.

And Teale thinks there ought to be a little bit more credit given to Saints after their Hampden heroics.

He said: "I felt that it was completely overlooked how well we played against Celtic. We didn't hang on and scrape the win, we thoroughly deserved it.

"And I think that in itself has given us all a massive lift – we know that we are capable of playing well and of taking the game to teams.

"We just need to try and do that on a consistent basis."

New signings Conor Newton and Esmael Goncalves have settled in well to Danny Lennon's side and Teale expects the duo can enhance the Paisley squad as they seek to start moving up the table.

"They have both done really well," said Teale, who has helped push Saints to within four points of the top six.

"Esmael couldn't have done any better, but the challenge will be for him to maintain that. Conor has been excellent too.

"I think once they get to know us as a team a bit better and we get to know their game we'll see more from them.

"For the first time in months we have a full squad with no real injury problems and that is a really big thing.

"The manager has done well to get a few extra bodies in (including Paul Dummett on loan until the end of the season).

"If we can get a wee run in the Scottish Cup it could well be the difference between getting another few new faces in over the summer or none."