Hamilton boss Stuart Taylor admits he would love a run in the SPFL Trust Trophy, but achieving consistency is his immediate target.
Accies host Hearts' 'B' team in the competition's second round at New Douglas Park tonight, and Taylor says he has a game-plan built around knocking the Tynecastle club out of the competition.
But Taylor says it's a work in progress and general improvement at Accies is his aim.
The former Hamilton midfielder said: "I see it being a tough game; for Hearts as a development team it's all about loads of ideas and playing with a freedom. There's no expectation, so they're a lot more relaxed.
"We have to deal with it in the right way, and we've got our game-plan of how we're going to go about it, and we're looking forward to it.
"We managed to get the players on the pitch again on Monday, got some layers added onto what we did last week, and every day and every week there's more and more information. It's just trying to delve into it more and more every single time.
"It's very much progress-led, so if we do the right things and play the right way, work hard and we give it our all, then more often than not we'll get the right result.
"I do get that there are going to be weeks where for whatever reason it's just an off day, but it's non-negotiable that we make sure people still work hard and do all the right things.
"Everybody says next week's got to be better than last week's game, and all the way through the season, but that's not going to happen - it's over the course of a period of time.
"We'd love to get cup runs and win every game and all that sort of stuff, but we have things we need to achieve and things we need to do consistently well, and that's what we're really concentrating on."
Taylor says the response he's had from the players has been excellent, but they must build on Saturday's 2-1 win over Queen of the South.
And he says this weekend won't be 'free' as the players will be put through their paces to improve fitness and strength.
He said: "When you work all week there's a lot of information going across, you're trying to gauge if it's too much info, but the players were really receptive and it showed on Saturday that a lot of the work we did during the week paid off.
"They did it, they got joy from it, and it's a case of building on it. It's recognising that it's the first game.
"It's great that we got a good performance and fantastic that we got a great result, but it's the first game and we need to build on it.
"The players have been superb, they've been receptive to everything. I'm really happy with the response on Saturday."
Taylor added: "You take the run of games as they are, and I don't know if it will be a 'break' in the sense that we'll be in on Saturday.
"We'll be working, and it gives us an opportunity to work on things on the pitch, as opposed to preparing for games.
"We will try to get the players' fitness levels up this week.
"It's not going to be like a mini pre-season, because we don't have the time to do that, but certainly we will be working the players, getting ideas across, and at the same time improving fitness and strength."
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