Rankin wary of County quality

HIBS midfielder John Rankin reckons the SPL experience in Ross County’s ranks will ensure his old team goes into Saturday’s Scottish Cup quarter-final confident it can cause an upset.

The Staggies are much changed since Rankin spent three years in Dingwall after his apprenticeship at Man-chester United.

He knows Derek Adams’s outfit has a top-flight background which makes it dangerous opponents for the Easter Road side.

John Hughes’s men arrested a run of five games without a victory when they defeated Kilmarnock 1-0 on Saturday. They are attempting to win the Scottish Cup for the first time in 108 years.

Rankin is wary of the danger posed by the visitors. He said: “A lot of the County players left and went on to Premier League football and I don’t think I played with any of the team now when I was up there.

“It’s all changed, the management staff have obviously changed, but it’s an old team of mine and I’m looking forward to them coming down.

“When I was there it was always Ross County that were the football side but Inverness were the winning side.

“County won a lot of admirers in the First Division for the way they played football with Alex Smith and then John Robertson continued.

“When they come to Easter Road they might want to sit back and soak up the pressure and then hit us on the break. But, however they approach it, they’ve got Premier League experience in the team, with players such as Steven Craig, Paul Di Giacomo, Richard Brittain and Scott Morrison.”

It is the first time the teams will have met in a competitive fixture.