Teale hails young guns

First-half goals from Sean Kelly and Kieran Sadlier and a Steven Thompson penalty double earned Saints a 4-1 home win over Kilmarnock and moved the Scottish Premiership side seven points behind Motherwell with four games left.

Teale said: "I've said all along we are never going to throw in the towel. We will always keep believing when mathematically we still have a chance.

"I'm delighted for the players for the performance they put in and we managed to carry a bit of luck that we have not had all season.

"You need to earn that luck and the work-rate they showed and the desire they showed and commitment for each other."

Teale had to ring the changes with Jim Goodwin and Viktor Genev suspended, their fellow centre-back Marc McAusland departed and star midfielder John McGinn injured.

But young players Jack Baird, Kelly, Jason Naismith, Stephen Mallan and Thomas Reilly all excelled as St Mirren emphatically ended a run of five consecutive defeats without scoring.

"I don't know if it was maybe because we freshened the team up a bit but they deserved everything," Teale said.

"Football is all about timing and hindsight and maybe people would ask if I could have done it sooner but with the position we are in, to expect young boys to deal with that pressure week in, week out, it's very difficult for them to have a consistency level."

Kilmarnock boss Gary Locke admitted he would worry about letting their seven-point lead over the favourites for the play-off spot, Motherwell, slip if they replicated their sloppy first-half display.

"If you put in performances like that, of course you do, but we are in the same position we were in this morning and we are hoping that's a one-off," he said.

"Since I've had the job I have been pleased with a lot of performances but the first half simply wasn't good enough.

"We can only apologise to the fans for not turning up in the first half."

The defeat - Kilmarnock's fifth on the trot - was even more painful for the 1,000-plus visiting fans given it came on the 50th anniversary of their league title win.

"We had a great support and we let them down badly, especially with the way we started the game," Locke said.

"And you can't legislate for the first goal, we had comfortable possession, we give them the ball and they scored.

"I was happy with the response in the second half and we got back to 2-1 but obviously they got a couple of penalty decisions and it ends up a bad defeat."