Graeme Stack has the experience to know that when you are down things can seem to go against you at every turn - but the goalkeeper is not about to start moaning about ill-fortune, pointing out that when he looks around the Hibernian changing room right now he knows that everyone there only has themselves to blame for poor performances in recent games - and only they can turn things around again.

There was the almost inevitable cries of goalkeeper error surrounding the first strike by Hearts at Tynecastle on Saturday - and while happy to admit he might have made a different choice, Stack is not about to hide his head in shame: "It took a deflection off of Ranks - I have watched the goal a few times and Ranks just does his upmost to stop the ball coming into the box, it just takes a nick off of his foot, spins against the post and comes out straight to Driver's feet - it could have gone anywhere - and he smashes it into the net first time. So I have looked at the goal again and maybe I could have parried it off for a corner but I didn't want to give a needless corner away as I was not sure if it had come off of Ranks. As I said it could have gone anywhere but it went straight to Driver and he finished it well to be fair to him."

Defeat is never easy to take but in such a vital Edinburgh Derby - and just ahead of an even more vital Active Nation Scottish Cup tie - the defeat can be allowed to take on a whole new dimension. For Stack however it is really quite simple, Hibernian simply must lay it to one side and produce a performance against Ross County tomorrow that sets Hibernian's season back on track: "I am not going to start making excuses about bad luck and all the rest of it because we have only got ourselves to blame. We look around in the changing room and we know that it has not been good enough in recent weeks. There may have been a lack of confidence around the place and rightly so because we have not won many games.

"Ok, we have not lost in three but we have not been on a winning run. Tuesday is possibly the biggest game of our season. I looked at the fixtures for this month and thought it was the biggest of our season and it is fair to say that it has not gone how I would have hoped. Now we have a game on Tuesday to go and put that right by putting ourselves in the semi final. We will go home and reflect on the game and we will discuss it at training, but as far as we are concerned the Hearts game is over now and we need to move on. We need to look forward not back.

"I was at Leeds when we were relegated and on paper we had the best side in the division - full of internationalists - but when you get in a rut of not winning games it does affect the players. We need to give the punters something to shout about by getting to Hampden because that could turn around our season. Sometimes you need the cup to give you a break from the league and give you something else of focus on. We are all well aware that Tuesday will be tough up in Dingwall and we have some massive league games coming up so it is all still to play for. We need to stand up and be counted now and obviously the punters are not happy - they have been brilliant all season - so it is about time we paid them back with a good run of results."

Because of their form in the first half of the season Hibernian remain in the fortunate position where the recent poor run has not yet put an end to a season that has promised so much. Stack is well aware of the fact that the side need to turn that situation into a positive again - knowing also that if they do so the recent run will not be remembered come the end of the season: "Maybe we set our stall out too well and in the end the punters and other teams believed we were better than we actually are and we are not being found out a little bit. Maybe we are not as good as we all thought. We were looking at taking third place comfortably and people were taking about first or second but now you see just how quickly football changes, now it is about can we finish third or can we finish fourth. Initially we wanted to finish third and get to a cup final, as far as I am concerned that is still on. This season is not over yet everything is still on as far as I am concerned."