THE New Saints take the next step in their IRN-Bru Cup adventure at Scottish Championship strugglers St Mirren on Saturday (3.45.)

The Saints make the trip to Paisley having lost their unbeaten domestic record at Carmarthen Town last week while their hosts are in the midst of a season long relegation battle.

However Saints coach Craig Harrison insisted the Welsh champions were underdogs.

“They’re a Scottish Championship club and they’re at home, although they’ve been on a poor run of late,” said Harrison. “We’ll talk about their strengths and weaknesses and we won’t focus on the latter.

“They’ve been up and down, and they have had a big turnover players, which means one week they’ll be up and one week they’ll be down. 

“Obviously, for a club the size of St Mirren, going out of the Championship would be huge. Personally, I think they’ll play their strongest team.

TNS will travel to Scotland by train on Saturday morning before the team will stretch their legs at Celtic’s training ground, who have ironically been drawn against St Mirren in the Scottish FA Cup.

“We’ll do a normal 90-minute session and we’ll probably finish with some tactical stuff. Then it’s back to the hotel for some downtime and rest, said Harrison who is sweating on the fitness of midfielder Ryan Brobbel.

“We know what we’re doing, it’s all mapped out and everybody is looking forward to it,” added the Saints manager who insisted he would not make sweeping changes following last week's defeat.

“Nothing will change,” said Harrison. “The lads will be back into training this week. My coaches and I had a long chat and it’ll be erased from the memory.”