By John Greechan

Copyright scotsman

Everybody has an opinion on the ability, the suitability and – especially – the mentality of a Rangers team struggling to draw breath under the pressure of life at Ibrox. But when Saturday’s visitors to Govan talk about the struggle currently being lost by Russell Martin’s men, their words carry added weight – because they’ve been through exactly this sort of crisis. Hibs put in the hardest of hard yards over the opening months of last season, as rookie head coach David Gray struggled to drag his team off the foot of the Scottish Premiership table – a position they occupied as late as early December. The rest, of course, is history. And geography, with Hibs swapping the top-flight basement for a place at the business end of the table, topped by a third-place finish. Gray, drawing comparisons between his own plight and an Ibrox crisis he hopes to deepen significantly in Saturday evening’s Premier Sports Cup quarter-final, said: “I think what was driving me – and I’ve said it very publicly – was I fully believed the players were buying into what I was doing. I could see where we were failing at times. “But they were giving me the confidence and belief every day on the training pitch that, given time, we would turn it around because of what I was seeing. I think that’s the big thing that definitely kept me going. “And that siege mentality, if you want to call it that, focusing on what we were doing internally. I was then able to demonstrate that to the powers that be, the football club, why I believed it would turn. “It was never a case of ‘I’ve lost the players’ or I felt like they weren’t running for me at any stage during that period. I think that’s a part of having a really good group round about you, and all pulling in the same direction. “That’s something that all you can really focus on is hammering down what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Making sure the players are responding to that.” For everything that Hibs achieved last season, being pitted against Celtic early in both domestic knock-out competitions ultimately left them unable to reach a semi-final. Hampden, the host venue for last-four ties in both the Scottish Cup and the much-rebranded old League Cup, was not on their list of away-day destinations in a campaign that delivered plenty of ridiculous highs. Asked if he felt that making it to the national stadium, the prize on offer for progress in Govan on Saturday, represents a chance for those players to tick the one box left unfilled last year, former Scottish Cup-winning captain/goal scoring hero Gray said: “It is. I think when we finished third in the league, it’s almost like winning the league for us because of how hard it is to bridge the gap to Rangers and Celtic “Especially from where we were whether it was 14 games bottom of the league … maybe not quite as many as 14 but it certainly felt like that anyway! So however games it was bottom of the league, to turn it around to finish in third was an incredible achievement. “But the cups … we didn’t really get a run in the cups. Both times we got unfortunate draws away to Celtic Park twice, which is always a difficult place to go. This one again is a real difficult draw slightly later in the competition with the opportunity to get to Hampden. Once you get to Hampden anything can happen, I’ve been fortunate enough to experience as a player and as a coach. “I’ve been as a coach there as well and they are brilliant days. They are brilliant days for the supporters and I think that’s the next step for the football club. “Every year you want to try and win a trophy. If this group of players play to the level they can – and we need to be at our very best – then they’re capable of winning a trophy. That certainly motivates me and certainly motivates the players just now. “That would be fantastic. That’s what we’re setting out to do. It becomes difficult because of the level of opposition. “We’ve got a real difficult challenge to get into the next round of the cup, but that is the reward for getting through, which is an opportunity to go to a semi-final, and then anything can happen when you get to that stage of the competition.” Plenty of successful players realise, as soon as they move into coaching, that a different sort of motivation arises. As much as they want to savour big moments for themselves, what they really desire is to see their players making the most of every opportunity. “One hundred per cent,” said Gray, the still-relatively-new manager adding: “You think about that all the time because that’s what your job is. My job is to win games of football and try and improve the players. That doesn’t change. “These are opportunities that, it’s probably not until I look back now when I’ve retired and think back to my best memories within football, you see how fortunate you were to go and achieve things in your career. Players can play at the very highest level, play down in England, play at a really high level, but never actually play in Europe or never actually win anything within your career – because it is really difficult to do. “This is a genuine opportunity for us to do it. If you have been able to do something like that, that’s something that will stick with you forever.”