TOMMY CRAIG is hoping his young St Mirren gems shine brightly this week as he opens the door to the first team.

The St Mirren gaffer gave youth a chance in the 1-0 win over Morton on Saturday, with Mo Yaqub and Adam Brown being given game-time along with 20-year-old goal-scorer Jason Naismith.

Craig believes he has a battle-hardened core of around 15 players who can deal with the rigours of top-flight football.

But as the Buddies go to Stenhousemuir this evening, ahead of facing Blyth Spartans on Saturday and Whitley Bay on Monday, he has promised to give his hit-kids the opportunity to show they can make the jump up the ranks.

He said: "We've tried to give the young boys the opportunity to go into these kind of games to show what they can do.

"Mo is just one of half of dozen. He did all right against Morton but you can see he is maybe not ready for this type of game.

"Young Adam Brown went on and looked good. I thought he did particularly well in the last half an hour.

"These games coming up will give us the opportunity to use all the young boys we have.

"At this moment in time we have 15 pros who know the rigours of the Premiership. Beyond that we have five or six youngsters who don't.

"But I've got to find out about them, and the only way to do that is to put them in to games.

"As soon as they go into that sort of atmosphere it tells you the tale.

"Do they have the attitude, do they have the guts, do they have the desire to be a footballer?"

Craig, whose Saints side's first game of the new season is away to Motherwell on August 9, added: "Every now and then you will come unstuck and a boy will get thrown in and look totally out of place.

"But thankfully that has not happened to us yet.

"It's not sink or swim over the next week.

"But it's an opportunity for them to tell me: 'Tommy, I'm here. I might not be ready yet but look what I've got, I might be ready in a year or six months' time'."