Ryan McGowan confident St Johnstone can get better of in-form Hibernian

St Johnstone defender Ryan McGowan is confident the Perth side can get the better of an in-form Hibernian if they play to their potential.

Hibs have only lost to Celtic and Rangers in the cinch Premiership since Nick Montgomery took charge in early September and the Leith side sit fourth in the table ahead of their trip to McDiarmid Park on Saturday.

But Saints have experienced an upturn of their own since their managerial change and have only lost two of their last seven matches, the defeats coming against Hearts and Celtic.

Saturday’s game brings with it extra spice given Saints manager Craig Levein will come up against Hibs for the first time since leaving Hearts and Tynecastle hero McGowan needs little external motivation when coming up against his former Edinburgh rivals.

The Australian hit three goals for Hearts and two of them came against Hibs, including one in the 5-1 Scottish Cup final derby win in 2012.

The 34-year-old said: “It doesn’t matter who you are playing against, even whether it’s Celtic or Rangers. We ran Celtic pretty close a couple of weeks ago and we beat Rangers here last year.

“We know we are a match for anyone on our day if we play the way we want to play.

“Obviously some teams have bigger resources so we need them to be a little bit off it, but we are going into Saturday’s game pretty confident we can get a win if we play the way we want to play – and that’s our main focus.”