Hibs assistant manager Robbie Stockdale has been invovled in enough derbies to realise that they aren’t just another game and believes it’s wrong to try and play the occasions down.
He’ll get his second experience of the Edinburgh edition just three weeks after his first, which came in the form of a 2-1 win at Tynecastle .
Hearts are at Easter Road on Sunday seeking revenge and a second win in Leith this season – something they haven’t managed for 22 years.
The build up and to and reaction after the last one left Stockdale in no doubt as to what this fixture means in the capital.
“I learned that pretty quickly,” he said. “It certainly does feel special.
“You could play it down but, honestly, you’d be wrong to do that.
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“You can see what it means to people – you only have to look at the last game to know that.
“We’re expecting exactly the same kind of atmosphere this time, although obviously more in our favour. It will be electric.
“We really want to excite our fans and send them home happy again.
“I did all right in derbies as a player, not too bad. I only really played in the big ones at Middlesbrough – and was a bit better against Sunderland than against Newcastle.
“The Sunderland-Newcastle game is huge. That’s probably the biggest, in England, that I’ve been involved in.
“The Edinburgh derby, you get the same buzz about it. The fact that two teams are in the same city adds to it.
“There is only one result that Hibs supporters look out for, I think. And we hope to make them happy again.”
As much as he enjoyed the the last encounter, Stockdale was at pains to stress it wasn’t something Hibs sat back and congratulated themselves on.
“The last derby is gone now,” he stated. “We didn’t dwell on it, just enjoyed it for what it was and then, the very next day, focused on the next game.
“I won’t lie to you and say we were basking in the victory for days and days after it. We weren’t.
“As soon as the final whistle went, we moved on to thinking about the next week’s training.”
Hibs v Hearts - five end of season Edinburgh derbies with varying significance
As for the specifics of winning again, he says Hibs will collectively have to come up with a way to do it given there’s one area he doesn’t believe they can get the better of Hearts in.
“Every team that you play against will cause you problems,” said Stockdale. What we’ve got to do is try to be true to our style of football.
“If you are talking about matching them up physically, we can’t do that. So we’ve got to find a different way to win.
“We’ve managed to do that once. Our job is to do that again.”
