BY ALAN TEMPLE – @CCP_Sport
Falkirk manager Peter Houston has urged his side to rack up an unbeaten end to the campaign as the battle with Hibernian for second spot in the Championship enters the final straight.
The Bairns have overachieved this term and currently lead Hibs by six points, albeit the capital club have the cushion of three games in hand during an intriguing run-in.
Falkirk travel to Queen of the South tomorrow afternoon seeking to bounce back from a shock 2-1 defeat at home to relegation-threatened Livingston last weekend.
That was only the second time they have lost a league match at the Falkirk Stadium this term and brought an impressive seven-match unbeaten run, including a triumph over Rangers, to a crashing halt.
However, Houston is refusing to panic and knows that a similar sequence of games without defeat is likely to see them claim the runners-up spot behind Rangers.
He said: “We went seven in a row unbeaten, I’ve told the players that we want to go the final six games unbeaten again. There’s the challenge for them.
“Those players were every bit as disappointed as me with the result against Livingston.
“Everyone is desperate to put things right, nobody shrugs it off at this football club. It was a missed opportunity but we are still well in the hunt.
“We’ve still got Hibernian to play and between now and the end of the season there will be points dropped. But, hopefully Queen of the South, which is always a tough place to go, is the start of another run.”
Hibs host Falkirk in what promises to be mouth-watering clash on April 12 and, should both sides win all their matches until that point, just three points will separate them going into that fixture.
However, Houston insists the race for second will not rest solely on that contest, hinting that Hibs’ packed fixture list in the final months of the campaign could play a major factor, with Alan Stubbs’ men also still in the hunt for Scottish Cup glory.
He added: “Hibs have a very tough schedule to navigate and they might well come through it – they do have a big squad of players. But they might not.
“People keep telling me ‘the game at Easter Road is massive’. No, the game at Queen of the South is massive, the game against St Mirren is massive.
“We’ll think about Hibs after that.”
