Hamilton Accies winning a cup would be huge, but we're nowhere near that, says boss

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Hamilton Accies winning the Challenge Cup would give the whole club a major boost – but boss John Rankin warns they’re nowhere near the final yet.Championship side Accies host their League One ground-sharers Clyde in the quarter-final of the SPFL Trust Trophy, and Rankin admits he’s using a semi-final berth against League One sides Queen of the South or Kelty Hearts as motivation for his young side.With Accies struggling in the Championship, Rankin hopes a win tonight can provide a major boost.But he is absolutely not under-estimating a Clyde side that he spent two happy years at to end his distinguished playing career.He said: “Winning the Challenge Cup would be huge for this club.“We speak about teams wanting to go on cup runs.

We’ve got to the quarter-final of this cup and we want to progress into the semi-finals, it’s as simple as that. Likewise, I’m sure Clyde do.“It’s going to be a difficult game, I was at Clyde for two seasons and I have fond memories there, but we know it’s a cup we want to progress in.“I don’t want to speak about how big a lift winning the cup would give us – we’ve got three games before that.“We need to go and win the game that’s in front of us, which is against Clyde.“If we progress beyond that then we’re into the semi-final.“It’s motivation we give to the players to try and get to the next round.”Hamilton progressed to the quarter-final with a 2-0 win over Inverness, and disposed of Rangers ‘B’ 3-0 in the third round back in November.Rankin is looking forward to this, and hopes it helps his players.He said: “It’s another game, it’s another part of the season, which we can unravel and see where we can get to.“Hopefully it’s successful.