Hamilton Accies head coach John Rankin wants his side to get their Premier Sports Cup campaign off to a great start against Dundee – and that means silencing the Dens Park crowd.
Rankin, who spent five years on the opposite side of the road at city rivals United, says there will be a ‘vibe’ about Dens Park when Accies arrive there tomorrow afternoon, and they have to deal with that.
With new boss Gary Bowyer in place, the Taysiders will want to show they can bounce back to the Premiership at the first time of asking.
But Rankin says the most important aspect of Accies’ entire group stages campaign is playing their own game and implementing the hard work they’ve put in over pre-season.
Rankin said: “Hopefully we can start on a high.
“Dundee have a good following, they will be noisy if we let them grow into the game, and their game-plan will be to get the crowd on-side very early doors.
“They’ve got a new manager themselves, and they’ll be looking to hit the ground running.
“We’ve got to weather that storm, keep the crowd quiet, and hopefully use it to our advantage.
“Hopefully we can do so. I’ve been part of teams that have won at Dundee many times, but I’ve also seen the other wide of it, where if you let the crowd help the home team it then becomes the opposite.
“Tomorrow, the players need to go out and play their own game.
“Hopefully we can take our style, the way we want to play, and the work that we’ve been putting in over the last three or four weeks into place, and take it from there.”
Rankin added: “I always liked playing at Dens Park. I spent five years up in Dundee, I love the city, lovely people – obviously across the road, mainly.
“But it’s a place where I think there’s a real history when you go into the ground. It’s traditional, but there’s a real atmosphere within it when there’s people involved.
“It’s a nice, good pitch to go and play football on and go and express yourself.
“When we arrive there and the players get off the bus, there’s a real vibe from that.
“If we feed off that, go and play our style of play and implement what we’ve been trying to do from the start, then it should make for a good day.
“I’m really looking forward to it. It’s the first game of the season, that’s what pre-season has been all about.
“It’s the first competitive match, and it’s the first one the players all want to be involved in, because they see that as the first starting XI of the season.
“All of the hard work they’ve put in over pre-season is to be involved in that game.
“They need to look at the bigger picture as well, but the hard work has been good, enjoyable and their attitude has been great.
“Touch wood, everybody’s injury-free at this moment in time.
“So they can get to tomorrow and put in a performance that their hard work has merited.”
Rankin says Group H is a strange one, as they have two Championship rivals in Dundee and Queen’s Park, alongside League Two duo Forfar and Stranraer.
But he says progression from it will rely on them having the right approach.
He said: “It is a difficult group and a different group. Usually at this stage of the season you’ve got a Premiership team and maybe one from each division, but we’ve got three Championship teams.
“That makes it different, but the other two teams – Stranraer and Forfar – will be looking to make a name for themselves, and they’ll see it as an opportunity to play against full-time teams.
“They’ll probably be a wee bit disappointed that it’s not Premiership teams they’re playing against, and I totally get that.
“But from our point of view we have to be professional in our approach to those games.
“We have to look forward to them, and no matter who the opposition is, we have to play our style.”
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