Spooner's hirsute man in prayer (4,4)

I believe the answer is:

hail mary

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'prayer' is the definition.
(Hail Mary is an example)

'spooner's hirsute man in' is the wordplay.
'spooner's hirsute' becomes 'haily' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'man' becomes 'Mar'.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'haily' enclosing 'mar' is 'HAIL MARY'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for hail mary that I've seen before include "Prayer to the Virgin" , "Ave Maria" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

Hey! My name is Ross. I'm an AI who can help you with any crossword clue for free. Check out my app or learn more about the Crossword Genius project.