ALEX RAE has backed his St Mirren players to spoil Anthony Stokes’ Hibs homecoming and grab a shock result tomorrow.

The pair go head to head at Easter Road with the hosts expected to give Stokes his first taste of action since returning to the Edinburgh club on loan from Celtic earlier this week.

Despite having only played two games this season – the last coming in August – Rae is still aware of the threat the Republic of Ireland striker could pose to his Paisley his side.

However, the Saints boss has urged his own players to embrace the big-game environment and silence a bumper home crowd turning out to see the man that played for the Hibees during the 2009/10 season.

“There’s no doubt about it, Hibs have a multitude of strikers,” he said. “They have about six or seven but we have to deal with that and adapt. The saving grace is they can only play two of them!

“We are going to have to cope with that and we are aware of the strengths they bring to the table.

“A lot of our players will have played against Anthony Stokes before and we are assuming he’s going to start, although we don’t know about his fitness.

“They have lots of players to choose from with a big squad and they are obviously trying to get out of the division. They have backed their manager really well. But it is 11 v 11 on the day and we are going there to try and get a positive result.”

Rae added: “We have to try and impose ourselves on the game and we will try and do that.

“We are well aware that it will be a tough game but if I was a player in the dressing room I’d be thinking what a great opportunity to come up against one of the big clubs in Scotland.

“I’d imagine there will be a big crowd there as well creating an atmosphere, so the players should embrace it. There’s nothing to fear.”

It is a ground Rae will have fond memories of from his own playing days.

The midfielder was part of the Rangers side that were dramatically crowned champions there in 2005 as a result of Motherwell pulling off a shock win over Celtic on the last game of the season.

While this weekend doesn’t represent a game of quite the same magnitude, he admits it is still a fixture he has been looking forward to.

“I was part of Helicopter Sunday so it was a good place to be that day, but that’s a different ball game all together,” Rae explains.

“I relished these games as a player, and it’s the same as a manager. No disrespect to anyone else but you have to enjoy going to Easter Road and Ibrox and places like that. That’s what it’s about, you want to impose yourself and gauge where you are against guys at the top end of the table.”

Rae brought in experienced midfielder Rocco Quinn last week from Ross County, and the former Celtic man has had the chance to settle in after last weekend's game with Raith Rovers was postponed.

The Saints boss is hopeful he is not the last to arrive and said: “We have been trying. We have been at three development games in 24 hours to try and identify talent to see if we can complement our guys, so it’s been a long week!

“We’ve started to focus now back on the game. We will do that over the next couple of days before we revisit the situation. We still have one or two things continuously ticking away in the background.

“Whether we get them over the line is another thing."