New Hibs boss Jack Ross has his say as Hibs tenure begins with win

New Hibs head coach Jack Ross applauds the Easter Road crowd as he watches his side come from behind to beat Motherwell. Pic: SNS

Jack Ross was thrilled to see his side come from behind to beat Motherwell 3-1 in the Ladbrokes Premiership as he took charge of Hibs for the first time.

Goals from Christian Doidge and Flo Kamberi put them in front by half-time after Liam Polworth had put the Steelmen ahead and although the Fir Park outfit had the better of the second half, a Daryl Horgan strike five minutes from time sealed a win which pushes the Capital club into the top half of the Premiership.

The Hibs head coach said: “Obviously I was delighted with the result and large parts of the performance as well. It’s a different experience coming in mid-season and it does help to get off to a good start because it helps that ‘buy in’ from the players.”

Ross stuck with the team that had beaten St Johnstone 4-1 before he took over following the sacking of Paul Heckingbottom and that, he admitted, wasn’t a difficult call.

“It was probably one of my easier ones,” he said, “because the performance and result against St Johnstone had been good. I’m still trying to get a feel for a lot of the players, we got little bits of information across and the players took that on.”

Ross agreed, however, that Motherwell could well have had a penalty when Ryan Porteous knocked over striker Chris Long. He said: “I was probably expecting the whistle to go and I said that to Stephen (Robinson) at the time.

“But sometimes you need those breaks as well.”

Now Hibs travel to face Ross’ old club St Mirren on Tuesday night looking to build on this win. He said: “When I took the job the first starting point was to get into the top six and obviously we are there immediately.

“Now it’s about continuing to build and push from there. We have some good players here. I’m not coming into a squad of group that does not have ability, they have a lot of that and they are good in terms of their willingness to listen and learn.

“That’s encouraging and exciting.”