Hibs boss turns focus to Rangers in Scottish Cup after top-six leap

Monty sees 'professional' home win round off impressive week

Myziane Maolida celebrates his fourth goal in nine appearances for Hibs.

Nick Montgomery watched Hibs climb back into the top six with a solid home win over Ross County – and said the momentum from an impressive run of performances will carry his team into next weekend’s huge Scottish Cup quarter-final against Rangers at Easter Road.

Monty, speaking after seeing his boys ease to a 2-0 victory over relegation battlers County, took great satisfaction from a first clean sheet in the league since December. The Hibs boss said all focus was now on next Sunday’s visit of Philippe Clement’s Light Blues, who suffered a serious setback to their title hopes with a home loss to Motherwell this afternoon.

Hibs have taken seven points from the last nine available, starting with last weekend’s home victory over Dundee. And, but for a controversial penalty decision in the midweek draw with Hearts at Tynecastle, they might well have been sitting on the beginnings of an impressive winning streak.

“I think we’ll be where we deserve to be at the end of the season,” said the Yorkshireman. “We concentrate on ourselves.

“The next game right now is a big cup game. Then we have to go away to County for the postponed game (in the league).

“Right now our focus is on Rangers next Sunday. But we’re happy to be back in the top six – and definitely won’t be complacent. We have to keep performing to the standards we’ve set over the past week.

"Momentum has been building for the last couple of weeks. I think this was a well-deserved win. It’s been a big week, three games, and we’re unfortunate not to end it with nine points.

“Wednesday night was disappointing, so we had to pick the boys up from that, and they showed great character, even though there were some tired legs out there today. I thought we just needed to stay composed and concentrate on the job.

“I’m proud of the boys’ effort in a big week. It’s just nice to end it with three points. They’re a good group of boys with good resilience. Their mentality is really good.

“We had to pick them up after not getting the three points they deserved on Wednesday, get them back on the training ground for a real short turnaround before today. But the performance today was really professional. Now we’ve got a long week to recover before a big quarter final.

“All we can do is look forward to the next game against Rangers on Sunday. Really happy and proud of the boys’ effort this week, and to finish it off with three points at home in front of the fans is something we really wanted to do. Hopefully they come out in force next Sunday for a big game against Rangers.”