The Hearts onslaught

wanted to. The pitch wasn’t great but I’m sure the surface at Easter Road will be a bit better and it will probably suit both teams.

“I’m sure it’s going to be a very different game of football and hopefully one that football gets a chance to show.”

Last weekend’s derby will not go down as a classic. But Stevenson insists the fear of making a mistake on a badly cut-up pitch outbalanced any desire to be adventurous going forward.

He said: “The pitch was tough to play on, it was a bit uneven and nobody wanted to take chances or wanted to be the one remembered for playing a square ball and losing it.

“Nobody was taking chances but both teams could have been a bit braver and played a bit more.”

Hibs can stretch their unbeaten run in the derby to seven matches if they set up a quarter-final clash with Ayr United on Wednesday. But the defender reckons that record will not having any bearing on the Hearts players, especially since nine of them joined last month.

He added: “I’ve been on the other end of that of going on a long run without beating them, the pressure does mount up – more so when you’re going that way.

“But they’ve got a lot of new players and I’m sure a lot of them don’t even know that’s the case.

“It probably doesn’t matter in this case but I feel confident. It’s a one-off game, you are always confident with the players we’ve got that we can go and win a game.”

P