JIM Duffy admits Hibs’ impressive run to the League Cup final is evidence they are a team to be reckoned with throughout Scotland and not just at Championship level.

But the Morton manager says his players cannot allow themselves to be intimidated and will send them out with the intention of giving Alan Stubbs’ in-form side as difficult a game as possible.

Ton were scheduled to meet the Edinburgh outfit at Easter Road at the weekend but were left inactive due to their opponents’ semi-final against St Johnstone.

Hibs followed up victories over Aberdeen and Dundee United in the same competition by dumping Premiership Saints at Tynecastle and now meet Ross County at Hampden next month.

But Duffy believes his own hardworking side have also shown they can give anybody a game on their day and is determined to push Hibs all the way at Cappielow tonight.

He told the Tele: “It’s another huge game for us to look forward to. They just got into the cup final there at the weekend and they’re flying and full of confidence.

“They’ve beaten three Premiership teams to get there: Dundee United, Aberdeen and St Johnstone – that tells you how good a side they are.

“If you have beaten three Premiership sides on your way to the cup final, I think first and foremost you deserve to be there and, secondly, it tells you they can beat anyone on their day. We know Hibs have aspirations to get into the Premiership and beyond that again to be one of the top clubs in the country.

“They’ve been putting in the foundations ever since Alan Stubbs has gone there: their squad has got stronger and stronger and they have a bit of momentum.

“We understand all of that, but you can’t go overboard because you don’t want the players to be intimidated by the opposition.

“Similar to when we played Rangers, you can appreciate it but nevertheless make it as difficult a 90 minutes for them as we possibly can. And that’s what we intend to do — our sole intention is to go into this game and do what we can do well.

“If on the night we play to our strengths and our qualities, I think we’ve shown already this season we can give anybody a game, and I fully expect us to give Hibs a tough test as well.”

Ton lost 2-0 to Rangers eight days ago but the league leaders had it far from easy, and Duffy will be looking for similar application despite perhaps adopting a different approach against their title rivals.

He added: “Rangers and Hibs have different styles. Hibs play a different shape for a start and mix it up a little bit more. If you look at their winning goal on Saturday, it was just a long ball up from the goalkeeper, pick up the second ball and have a shot.

“The majority of the time they do play through the midfield, but if they have to mix it up, they’ll mix it up. So it’s a different style but the similarity comes in the quality; they are both extremely strong and talented in terms of their squads.

“I looked at the Hibs team on Saturday and they had [James] Keatings, [Martin] Boyle, [Darren] McGregor on the bench. [Anthony] Stokes and [Farid] El Alagui weren’t even on the bench.

“They have so many options to choose from and no matter who they put out they’ll have a top-class side. That strength in depth is a huge thing for Hibs and only matched by Rangers really. Their budget is miles ahead of ours but on our day we can compete with teams by matching them for effort, work ethic, discipline and commitment.

“We need to make sure the things we can match them on then we do that; if they have a little bit more quality in certain areas then we’ve got to try and stifle that.

“And what we’ve then got to do is not forget we have a part to play in the game as well, to go and try and take the game to Hibs at every given opportunity.”