Somebody up there likes us, insists Colin Nish

Published on Friday 12 March 2010 23:04

JOHN Hughes might desperately try to play down the belief Hibernian are on course for Scottish Cup glory this year but Colin Nish has admitted there is a sense of destiny being prepared to be met at Easter Road.

&#149 Hibs' Colin Nish

Like his manager, the striker needs no reminder of how much winning the trophy would mean in Leith. Both have lived through the more recent litany of failures though of course the pain stretches all the way back to 1902, when Hibs last lifted the cup.

But he has felt a growing anticipation this season, following victories over a junior side – Irvine Meadow – and Scotland's most lowly senior club, Montrose. With another non-Scottish Premier League club Ross County to be faced today, there is no question that Hibs have been treated favourably by the fates – so far.

"It does look as though someone is looking down on us, giving us decent draws," accepted Nish. "But if we win the cup it will be because of the way we play, it will not matter who we are playing against. It's mainly about what we have done.

"You see SPL teams going out to lower division teams all the time. If we are putting them out every week then we must be doing something right."

"We just need to win the next three games and we have done it," he continued breezily, admirably disregarding over 100 years' of hurt.

"I don't feel the pressure building. We just have to try and treat it like any other game. It would probably get to you if you started to think about it too much. We know what it means to everyone involved in the club, including the supporters. But as I say you have to go out there and make sure you have the composure to perform."

This hasn't always been the case, as every Hibs supporter knows. Nish, then of Kilmarnock, was in the stands to view the thrashing the Easter Road side were handed by Hearts in the semi-final in 2006, but this afternoon steps from a league suspension to help the side he supported as a boy aim to reach the same stage again.

He is determined to make the most of this chance, and not just for Hibs' sake. He has 90 minutes to make an impression before retreating to the stand again for next weekend's derby clash with Hearts, when his three-match league suspension – following a red card picked up against St Johnstone in February – resumes.

"It's hard enough to keep your place in the team," rued Nish, whose return for a game billed as the most important one of the season by Hughes was welcomed by the manager, who claimed he is a "huge part" of his plans.

Perhaps he reasons that the more Hibs fans on the field of play the better the side's chances of progressing, with Ian Murray – Nish's best friend at the club – also acutely alert to the significance of the cup tie.

Nish recalled the years spent watching Hibs throw away chances to do something in the competition, and admits defeat to Ross County after two previous home wins over lower division opposition would have to count as the ultimate sickener.

"We have been lucky with our draws in terms of not playing SPL teams, but it will be a very difficult game, probably just like playing an SPL team," said Nish.

"You still have to beat the teams. It is their cup finals as well.

"Sometimes you play a lower division team and it can end up as hard as playing an SPL team."

Nish has only played at Hampden once before – and this was in a match against Hibs. There was no hoodoo at work when the Easter Road side thrashed Nish's Kilmarnock 5-1 in the final of the Co-Operative Insurance Cup final in 2007, and though professionally disheartened to be on the end of such a wounding reversal Nish can smile about the experience now.

"I lifted big Rob Jones up for the first goal!," he joked.

He was at the national stadium when Hibs suffered another bruising Scottish Cup experience, losing 1-0 – to a Jim McIntyre penalty – in a semi-final replay in 2007.

He joined Hibs the following year and has fallen with his team at the early stages of the competition in the last two seasons. But the club's time, he believes, has finally arrived.