KIDS today, eh?

Swaggering about the town centre with their ripped jeans and their blaring headphones, speaking in incomprehensible jive; their attention span sucked into the latest mobile gadget.

"Society's different," mused Stephen McManus, the Motherwell defender. "Kids are different from when I was growing up. They're not as intimidated coming into a first-team dressing room. There's nothing worse than when you see a young kid coming in and he's lively, he's chirpy; the first thing you do is take them down a peg or two."

Some buck that trend, though, and one of them made a debut to remember last weekend. Motherwell trailed Hearts. The cameraman zooms in on Craig Moore's shirt, the 19-year-old just brought on for his debut. It zooms back out, just in time to see the ball break to Moore, who rockets it into the roof of the net with his first touch in league football.

"But if there is one kid I'm over the moon for," continued McManus, "it's Moorey, because he really deserves it. He comes into training, works as hard as he possibly can. Guys like that you want to see being successful.

"He then went up to Montrose the day after [the Hearts game]," added Stuart McCall, his manager. "He scored a terrific goal for the youth side. Then another on Tuesday. He's scored Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday."

Moore may need to be content with a place on the bench for now, but he just needs to look at the man leading the line for tomorrow's hosts to find inspiration on how to force a way into McCall's thoughts. Stevie May has earned his recent contract extension at St Johnstone, with a spate of goals and a series of thundering displays.

And McCall does not think it is too outlandish a thought that the frowsily frizzy-haired striker might also force his way into the senior Scotland squad for the next couple of friendlies. "He looks as though he could be first pick for the under-21s, now," McCall admitted. "If he keeps progressing - you look below what you've got if you've got any injuries or call-offs - he's certainly one who'll be knocking on the door. Could a call up be a possibility? It's not a daft suggestion."

Tommy Wright, McCall's opposite number, will be more worried about his defence, safe in the knowledge that the curly prowess of May will cause the problems up front. A lack of available central defenders will require a little improvisation. "We'll definitely have four full-backs in our back four," he admitted, despite this week signing Sanel Jahic, a Bosnian internationalist centre-back. "But they are all experienced and have all played in the centre of defence."