Gow loving time at Hibs despite injuries

INJURIES may have hampered his loan spell at Easter Road but Alan Gow insisted today that he's loving life with Hibs – and that he'd jump at the chance to make his stay permanent.

The Plymouth midfielder joined Hibs in January on loan until the end of the season after a managerial change at the Pilgrims saw him fall out of favour.

Paul Sturrock was replaced by former England international Paul Mariner in December last year and Gow found himself frozen out of the first team.

The former Falkirk player has relished the chance to link up with his old manager John Hughes and assistant Brian Rice at Hibs and to get back into the swing of regular first-team football.

A hamstring injury suffered five weeks ago has meant that his appearances for Hibs have been limited, however, he revealed that he's keen to work with the pair well beyond the end of the current campaign, saying: "I know the management well and a few of the players as well, so that played a big part in me coming here.

"I have loved my time at the club so far, although I've obviously had a bit of bad luck with injuries over the last while.

"I know that I definitely don't want to go back to Plymouth and I want to make sure that I can play as much as possible before the end of the season.

"As soon as I knew that John Hughes and Brian Rice were interested in me, I jumped at the chance because I loved working with them at Falkirk. I want to be able to make a bit of an impact before the end of the season and, obviously, I have only scored one goal.

"I am looking to be involved again this Saturday and hopefully I can then look towards adding to that over the next few weeks.

"All I can hope for is that I can do well for them over the next few weeks and then see what happens after that.

"I am having a great time here and if we could sort something out with the club in the summer, then I would be more than happy to stay here."

Gow was forced to limp out of the 1-0 win over Kilmarnock after just 25 minutes at the beginning of last month, being replaced by Moroccan Abdesallam Benjelloun who won Hibs a penalty – which he subsequently missed.

His first action since then came at the weekend when he was brought on for the final two minutes of the SPL game against Celtic on Sunday, despite only joining in with a full training session for the first time just 24 hours before. Gow added: "I had a bit of bad luck when I tore my hamstring about four weeks ago and, to be honest, I wasn't really expecting to be involved against Celtic at the weekend.

"I managed to train on Saturday, that was the first time that I had trained properly since I got the injury, and it was great to be back in the side again and involved. I had been working hard in the week or so before the Celtic game, basically as soon as I could run freely again so, fitness wise, I didn't think that I was too bad.

"I had been working a lot with the physios as well because I just want to be involved and hopefully I can get more football before the end of the season."

And Gow is obviously hoping to get more game time under his belt this weekend when Hibs travel to Hamilton to take on Billy Reid's side.

The former Rangers player concedes that the last few weeks have been hugely frustrating for him, having spent more time on the physio's treatment table and sitting in the stands than helping his team-mates out.

But he would love to get them back on track with a welcome win over Accies on Saturday.

"I have played against Hamilton a lot because I was with Airdrie when I was younger but those games were all in the lower leagues. I think they will be a different proposition in the SPL, they're a good side and I know that they will make it very difficult for us.

"I know Billy Reid quite well and there's no doubt that they will be hard to beat, he'll have them fired up for it and he will want them to finish as high up the league table as they possibly can."

While Hibs have come in for some criticism in recent weeks, Gow firmly believes that they can still claim third spot in the table this season, pointing out that the Easter Road outfit have already accrued more points than they managed to bag in the whole of last season. He said: "We are pushing to try to get third spot in the table right now though so the Hamilton game is massive for us as well.

"After the split we get to play against all of the best teams in the league again and I think that we are definitely good enough to win back third place in the table.

"I think that it is still on, if we can just get back to winning ways this weekend then hopefully we can step up the pressure on Dundee United.

"I don't see any reason why we can't do that.

"I have missed the past month and it has been hard for me to sit on the sidelines and watch it all happening.

"There's no getting away from the fact that we have had a few bad results lately but everyone at the club is staying positive and we have already got more points on the board than we did in the whole of last season.

"I think that fact has been lost on people really, because the Scottish Cup result against Ross County was a real disappointment and because of the way that the team started the season really.

"I wasn't at the club at the time but they were in great form at the start of the campaign and took points off of the Old Firm.

"Unfortunately we've suffered some disappointing results lately, the most disappointing being the defeat to Ross County because that was a great chance for us to get to a cup final."