WHEN you've had the sort of bad luck Hibernian have endured over the past few years it is probably best not to dismiss any kind of omen lightly.
Victory on Saturday will ensure Alan Stubbs' side will finish second in the SPFL Championship and secure an, in theory, easier route through the promotion play-offs. The problem, however, is that standing in their way is Falkirk, the side that knocked them out of the William Hill Scottish Cup final recently and whose record in the league against Hibs this season stands at two victories and a draw. Throw in the fact that Martin Boyle, the on-loan Hibs winger, also failed to beat Falkirk in four meetings with Dundee last season and the weekend's game starts to seem less and less like a foregone conclusion.
"Falkirk are kind of our bogey team this year," said the winger who opened the scoring in Saturday's 4-1 victory over Alloa Athletic. "I was the same with Dundee last season, we played Falkirk four times last season and never beat them. So maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the jinx! Maybe I should be benched, I don't know. It's a difficult place to go, even if they are not in the play-offs now. They will still want to end the season on a high. But I'm sure we will go there and get the job done."
Rangers' draw with Falkirk at least means Hibs' destiny in their own hands, sparing them what would have been the slightly awkward scenario of having to rely on rivals Hearts doing them a favour by beating the Ibrox side. The result from Tynecastle will be irrelevant if Hibs can take care of business.
"We will get a week's training and we will be cool about it," added Boyle, whose Dundee contract expires in the summer. "It will be playing on our minds a bit. We wanted to win out games and we have done that. Hopefully we are celebrating on Saturday.
"We all want the same aim. We want promotion. I've got a wee taste, a wee hunger for winning titles. We've got a fantastic opportunity to go up through the playoffs. It's a great bunch of lads here and I've settled well. I still look out for Dundee and if I go back there and there's a deal at the end of the season I'm sure I will take that option."
Liam Buchanan is hoping Hibs do it, too. The Alloa striker is a lifelong supporter of the Easter Road club and believes, in an admittedly biased opinion, that they are best placed to prevail in the play-offs. Saturday's performance, in which Scott Allan ran the show and had a hand in all four goals, served as a timely show of strength.
"I'm a Hibs fan so, aye, I fancy them to go up," said Buchanan."I thought they were very good today. It's probably the best they've been against use. They knock the ball about very well. They've got goals in the team with [Jason] Cummings, [Dom] Malonga and big Farid [el Alagui] coming back as well. They're a dangerous side. On their day, they're capable of beating anybody."
More pressingly for the striker is Saturday's home match against Cowdenbeath in which Alloa will look to lift themselves off the foot of the table.
"It's a massive game, but we go into it confident that we are going to win because that's the only outcome that's going to get us out of the situation we are in," added Buchanan. "We just have to be positive, play our best game for the 90 minutes and see what happens."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article