Ross County attacker Craig Curran is confident the Staggies will not be daunted by taking on the leading clubs in Scotland.
County were defeated 2-1 by Aberdeen on Saturday, with Dons defender Shay Logan scoring the winner 19 minutes from time. Curran had given Jim McIntyre’s side the lead after just two minutes before Mark Reynolds equalised midway through the first half.
Englishman Curran believes his team-mates will take pride in making Dingwall a tricky venue for opponents and he said: “We’ve got to compete for everything and make sure that when people come here they know they’re in for a game, that they won’t take anything away easily.
“We’ve got to make it a fortress and we’ve got the players to do that.
“We had a great win at Dundee to start the season but had the disappointment of losing on Saturday.
“There were still spells in the game when everyone could see we’re more than capable of mixing it with the big clubs.
“Everyone knows it’s going to be a better league this year.
“We’ve got all the big clubs in – Hibs have come up, Rangers are in, Celtic are there and Aberdeen are a big club. But we’ve recruited well, it’s going to be a tough year, but we will have to step up and improve.
“We’ve shown we’re more than capable of doing really well, so it’s up to us to go out and do it.
“Every game is going to be tough, regardless of whether we’re playing Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen, Partick or St Johnstone.”
Curran was disappointed his side failed to build on a promising start with his goal coming just 80 seconds into the match.
The 27-year-old added: “It was a great start and we played some good stuff. But for some reason we stopped doing that in the second half. We’ll have a look at it and go over it, learn from it and try to get better. We’ve got a big game against Motherwell on Saturday and we’ll be looking to put this right. We know we’ll have to be at it every week.”
Curran says his opening goal, which came from a Christopher Routis free kick, was the result of plenty of practice on the training field, adding: “We take pride in our set-plays – trying to stop goals and score them – and it was a great cross from Chris.”