BORN-AGAIN Buddie Lawrence Shankland is praying he can help St Mirren mount a serious Ladbrokes Championship promotion assault this season.

The Scotland Under-21 striker has returned to Paisley for a second loan stint from Aberdeen.

And Shankland is determined to kick on and prove to Saints boss Alex Rae that he can grab that goals to help revive the club’s fortunes in Scotland’s second tier.

He came on as a second-half substitute in Tuesday night’s 1-0 Betfred Cup win over Ayr – a result that preserved Saints' 100 per cent record in Group G.

Now he hopes to play his part in maintaining the club’s good start to the season.

Shankland, who netted 10 goals in 32 appearances for Saints last term, said: “I’m happy to be back and I’m looking forward to hopefully another good time while I’m here.

“I felt I came on a lot last year, obviously just with game time the more I was playing I seemed to improve every week and I was enjoying that so I’m looking forward to working with the new signings as well. Obviously John Sutton is an experienced player and I’ve worked with David Clarkson before so I’m looking forward to it.”

The forward always thought there was a chance he would be back and expects to settle in quickly having been with Saints last season.

He added: “I was hoping so because I enjoyed my time here that much and I enjoyed working with the boys and staff here. I liked everything about the club so if there was a chance of me going on loan I was looking forward to hopefully coming back here.

“I think it will be a big help because sometimes it takes a couple of weeks to settle in at a new club but I’ve been here and I’m not long away and I know most of the boys here. Obviously just a few new ones I need to meet, but apart from that I’m sure I’ll be fine.

“I got a good 90 minutes on Sunday, I had a game where I ended up just going and joining-in with the under-20s so I made sure I got all of the 90 minutes in. I just went and ran as much as I could really so I got what I could out of that.

“And then of course I got a run-out on Tuesday night against Ayr. Match sharpness will come, the more games I play, minutes I get under my belt so I’ll just need to take that in my stride and see how I get on.”

The striker is already relishing the challenge of trying to hand St Mirren a route back into the top flight.

He said: “There’s a lot of big clubs and good teams in the league and I’m sure it will be difficult. It will be a good league to take part in with big, big games coming up a lot so I’m looking forward to it.

“Personally I’ll just look to help out as much as I can and do hopefully as well as I felt I did last year towards the end of the year and get myself on the score sheet as much as I can. But I’ll just look to work hard and get us up that table as far as we can.”