Hibs ‘keeper Andrew McNeil will have nothing to do with the notion that the club's inconsistency is down to the amount of young players in the squad. Hibs started against Inverness on Sunday with eight players under the age of 23 - and were comprehensibly brought down to earth with a bump as they suffered a 3-0 defeat at the Caledonian Stadium. However, McNeil maintains it is experience and not age which counts, insisting Hibs have plenty of players well used to competing in the SPL. He said: "We might have a lot of young players. But you can look at Steven Whittaker who is 22 years old yet has played nearly 150 games. Age is not a factor - it is playing that gets you experience. It doesn't matter if you are 22 and have played 150 games or 32 and played have 150 games; you still have the same amount of experience".

Hibs were stung three times in the opening 45 minutes - through Craig Dargo, Roy McBain and Barry Wilson. Hibs never really recovered, and McNeil insists his team-mates must strive to discover what caused their latest defeat - the eighth time John Collins' side have lost on their travels in the SPL this season. He said: "I don't think you can write it off as just being one of those days, to be honest; there are reasons behind it, and as a team we need to address those issues because they happen far too often at this club. We expect to win games like this, especially the way we have been playing recently - and we didn't turn up, which is not good enough for the fans who came up here, or for us personally. I don't know off the top of my head what the problem is, and perhaps we need to look at our preparation - although we travelled up the night before the game, so it is not as if we should be heavy-legged".