Michael Weir: Hibs will have to be wary of threat from familiar faces in the coming days

Hibs are facing a massive, but exciting few days with Friday night’s Scottish Cup tie against Inverness Caley quickly followed by the third Edinburgh derby of the season.

Big games, under the lights, a great atmosphere and live on television, these are the sort of occasions players should be relishing.

To be honest, I think having the cup quarter-final ahead of the visit of Hearts is great for Hibs, John Robertson’s players coming to Easter Road with a semi-final place at stake will ensure minds won’t wander to Tuesday night.

It’s always amazing how players find that wee bit extra in front of the cameras, the chance to show what they can do.

The draw, of course, has been kind to Hibs, a team from the Championship, the lowest ranked of all the sides left in the competition and at home is no more than Jack Ross could have asked for.

However, as we all know, football doesn’t work that way. John Robertson will bring his players to Edinburgh determined to pull off something of a shock. He’ll have them geed up and they’ll enjoy coming to Easter Road when the pressure is all on Hibs while for Caley they have everything to win and nothing to lose, win and they’ll have all the headlines, lose and no-one will say anything more.

Caley are second in the Championship and, having watched their match against Dundee United, the leaders, the other night, I felt they were unlucky to lose it.

Robbo was at Easter Road for Hibs’ disappointing draw with Livingston the following day so he’s obviously, as you’d expect, doing his homework to ensure his players have all the information they possibly can ahead of kick-off.

Caley will carry a threat with players like James Keatings who, surely, will get the all-clear to play following the farce of his sending off against Raith Rovers, and big Jordan White, while they are packed with experience throughout the team, guys who will be looking forward to the chance to show what they can do against top-flight opposition. Having said that, I still think we should have enough on the day to go through.

Hibs have been in good form and hopefully the Livingston game proves to be nothing more than a blip. But to do that they have to make sure they are bang on it from the first whistle to the last, the standard of performance takes second place to what the cup is all about - making sure your name is in the hat for the next round.

The derby follows very quickly afterwards and then, just as quick, Hibs will be heading to Aberdeen to complete a trio of very important matches. As Ross has said, it has all the makings of an exciting end to the season for us but that old cliche applies, one game at a time.