By John Greechan

Copyright scotsman

Having endured and then enjoyed the whole “rollercoaster” experience of last season, you wouldn’t expect many in this Hibs squad to be hitting panic buttons and running around with their hair on fire after even a genuinely lacklustre start to the current campaign. The players who helped drag the Easter Road side off the foot of the table to finish third in the Scottish Premiership have earned the right to call for cool heads and a calm approach to the current situation. That doesn’t mean, however, that anyone in David Gray’s first-team group is taking things lightly. No-one is simply expecting fortunes to turn. As they head to Celtic Park and then Tynecastle in their next two games, the guys on the front line understand the need for a quick upturn in fortunes. At the very least, the absolute minimum, they’ll be looking to stay undefeated in the league after that double-header. Warren O’Hora, speaking after last night’s far-from-encouraging 2-2 draw with Falkirk, Hibs letting a 2-0 lead slip and looking as likely to lose as they were to win during a pretty brutal second half, is banking on the camaraderie built in 2024-25 to see this band of brothers through the looming crisis, pointing out: “That was a rollercoaster, of course, last season. We’d been through adversity then. “The group we have is magnificent; it’s the way we stick together. We’ll have a day off to digest what’s happened today and we’ll come back in and we have a big game on Saturday. “We’ll assess what happened, we’ll go back through what we’ve done good and what we’ve done bad. And we’ll stick together. “We have a brilliant squad. There’s no doubt we’ll stick together going through this. “We’re still undefeated in the league. It doesn’t feel like that at the moment, but we are. That’s the reality. We just know where we need to be better and we’ll keep improving.” For what it’s worth, O’Hora firmly believes Hibs can pick up a first win at Celtic Park since January 2010 on Saturday, the Irishman declaring: “Yes, of course. You have to back yourself, don’t you? If you don’t back yourself, what’s the point of being in this game? “No doubt about it, it’s a tough test for any team. But we’ve gone there previously and we’ve done well, although obviously without getting results. “We all know how tough it is to go there and win. We’ll back ourselves and give our best shot, no doubt.” Asked if Hibs were hoping to use supporter unrest with club leadership to turn the Celtic Park crowd against the home side, O’Hora grinned as he admitted: “Yes, of course. That would be ideal. We all know what Celtic Park is like. “I’m sure the gaffer will have a game plan in mind. I can’t tell you exactly what it’ll be because I’m not him. We’ll see how we go on with that one during the week.” Hibs started well at Falkirk last night, and were probably worth their 2-0 lead. But they were flat after conceding a first just before half-time. And looked done long before full-time. Asked about the short turnaround between last weekend’s Premier Sports Cup loss at Ibrox and a fixture rearranged from the business end of Hibernian’s attempt to qualify for the UEFA Conference League, O’Hora revealed that preparation had been restricted to one day, explaining: “Monday, really. That was really it. “That’s football and that’s the beauty of it. You’ve got opportunities. “And it’s the same going into Saturday away. There’s always an opportunity to turn it around. “I have to say the staff and the club are brilliant at that. They work really hard off the pitch for us to get the best chance going into games. “Sometimes you only have a day, sometimes you have longer. But that’s football. We prepared the same way we do for every other game, to go out and win. So there’s no excuses on that end. “We know we’re conceding too many and not scoring enough maybe, or however you want to put it. At 2-0 up, I felt we were in control. Obviously a goal at that time changes the way you feel going into the dressing room. We know we need to be better in those situations. But we were still winning the game at half-time. “To be fair, that’s what the gaffer was telling us. We did play some good stuff in the first half. I thought in the second half, Falkirk came out and had a real go, so credit to them.” Your next Hibs read: It never gets easier – you just need to get better at the hard stuff