SFA performance director Malky Mackay last night praised Hamilton for putting their faith in home-grown players - and predicted they will reap long-term benefits from their involvement in the UEFA Youth League this season.

Hamilton progressed to the next round of the prestigious competition at the Hope CBD Stadium on Wednesday night with a dramatic penalty shoot-out victory over Swiss rivals Basel.

Jason Scotland’s side, who were playing in Europe for the first time, will now take on Midtjylland of Denmark in the domestic champions path second round next month.

Mackay was delighted to see the Lanarkshire side, who went undefeated in the Club Academy Scotland Under-17 league last season, record such a thrilling triumph.

He believes it is richly deserved as the Ladbrokes Premiership outfit, who have produced players such as James McArthur, James McCarthy and Lewis Ferguson in recent years, place a huge emphasis on their age-group sides.

And he is confident the players involved in the win over Basel and the forthcoming games will improve greatly as a result of being exposed to European opposition in future.

“Playing in the UEFA Youth League is exciting for Hamilton,” he said. “It is reward for nailing their colours to the mast and deciding they want to go down a certain route.

“It makes them an attractive club to go to. It will have nothing but benefit for them. They have to look at how they go into these games, what style they play against a European team and what they learned from this experience. I suppose it puts a spotlight on how they can make things even better.”

Mackay added: “There are a variety of young players who have come out of Hamilton who have been playing in their youth system.

“It is a great credit to Les Gray (the Hamilton chairman) who has decided ‘he is our manager, we have got a way of working, a way of playing, we buy into him and he is going to be our manager for the next few years’. They did it with Alex Neil and now they are doing it with Martin Canning.

“During a certain run to results, a button can be pushed. But it is refreshing to see what happens at Hamilton. It is what used to happen. A manager knew that every weekend he wasn’t looking over his shoulder. The pressure of the next four week’s results aren’t on him.”