Canning tells Accies to blank out Gers prize
MARTIN CANNING is refusing to look past the challenge of Dunfermline in tonight’s Scottish Cup fifth round replay, despite a tantalising quarter-final draw against Rangers at stake.
The Hamilton boss admits that the prospect of taking on the Glasgow giants for a place in the semi-finals is a huge carrot for his men to chase.
But he knows that his Championship opponents will be thinking the same thing, and he has warned his players not to think too far ahead.
“You have to do your job first,” Canning said. “You have to go and win the game then if you go through it, you go and play Rangers at Ibrox.
“That is a big incentive for everybody. But Dunfermline will be saying the same. For us, it is so important that we do our job properly, we don’t even think about that until we get ourselves through.
“It is the same as the league. I would never look two or three games ahead in the league. The next game is the most important. As soon you look too far ahead you start taking your eye off the ball.
“There will be no talk about it, nothing mentioned about it. It is a case of ‘let’s go and do our job’ tomorrow night.”
Canning doesn’t accept Hamilton are favourites to progress this evening despite their top-flight status.
The Accies boss feels that there is little between the sides despite being separated by a division, and he knows his team will have to be at their best if they are to prevail.
He said: “It shouldn’t change the mindset and that is something we spoke about last week.
“There is not a lot between Morton, Dunfermline, Falkirk, Dundee United, Hibernian and the bottom five or six in the Premiership.
“They might not have the same depth, but the starting line-ups are very similar in terms of quality.
“We need to get the mentality right and if we do that I believe we have the quality to win the game.”