St Mirren skipper Stephen McGinn relishing life in "best midfield" he's played in

Jack Ross’ buoyant Buddies demolished sorry Raith Rovers with a five goal salvo which ensured the Paisley team cannot be automatically relegated from the Scottish Championship.

At one stage of a tumultuous campaign, hauling themselves off the bottom looked like a mission impossible but that particular mission has been accomplished.

They are not home and hosed yet, of course, and they may need to take something from their trip to Hibernian on the final day of the season to avoid the relegation play-off but on this form, the Saints are facing every challenge with confident, tireless gusto.

McGinn is simply relishing life in the St Mirren engine room and his drive and creative nous was there for all to see during a fine collective performance which was highlighted by Stephen Mallan’s hat-trick.

The well-travelled McGinn, who was brought back to St Mirren in the January transfer window during Ross' major overhaul of the squad, said: “It’s one of the best midfields I’ve ever played in in terms of energy and moving the ball. It’s really exciting to be a part of that and it makes life easy for me.

“We play in the most pleasing way, it’s just attack every time we get the ball. I didn’t think it would be 5-0 but I knew we had that kind of performance in us as we’ve shown it in games already this season. This was a real pressure game and it wasn’t easy to do what we did. Fans have paid the money and that’s how you want to play.”

There’s still work to do to preserve St Mirren’s Championship status but, in these increasingly upbeat times of exciting possibilities, McGinn afforded himself a little peek into the future.

“If we keep the majority of the team together, we can be challenging at the top of the Championship next season,” added McGinn. “We hit rock bottom just before Christmas but we’re on our way back now. Look at the likes of Kyle Macgennis. He’s only 18 but has already played in 10 to 15 must win games this season. That will do so much for him going forward.

“When I came in, the aim was the play-offs as we were cut adrift. But now we don’t want to be in the play-offs, they can be a bit of a lottery, although we’d fancy ourselves if we ended up in there. But we want to take care of business next week.”

McGinn will go up against his brother, John, when St Mirren travel to the Capital for a showdown with the Scottish Championship winners.

The last time the two sides met in the league, St Mirren won 2-0 as the club’s resurgence gathered momentum.

McGinn said: “When they (Hibs) came here last time, it was a must-win for us and we were really good on the night. A couple of their players actually passed comment on how good we were that night. We know it will be another tough game at the weekend but we’ll do it for ourselves. There aren’t many teams in the country we think we couldn’t have a go at.”