Ross County assistant manager Don Cowie wishes his friend Shaun Maloney well at Hibs – but is masterminding a way to make it seven straight Premiership games without a win.

The sides go head-to-head at Easter Road this Saturday, with the 10th-placed Staggies on a four-match unbeaten run and a group of rivals just above them within striking distance.

After taking over at the Leith club in December, former Celtic and Scotland star Maloney began with wins over Aberdeen and Dundee United.

They edged past League 1 high-flyers Cove Rangers after extra-time in the Scottish Cup, before coming from behind to defeat Championship pacesetters Arbroath in Sunday’s fifth round tie.

When County visit Hibs on Saturday, just four points split the teams, so there’s a real incentive for the visitors.

Delighted Maloney landed Hibs job

Former Hearts ace Cowie rates his former team-mate Maloney, who has joined from the Belgium national coaching set-up, and is sure he’ll bit a hit in the capital.

He said: “I played with Shaun for Scotland a couple of times, and I was at Wigan with him for a spell too.

“He’s a good friend of mine, and I was delighted for him when he got the job.

“Now it’s about him obviously trying to find his feet as a manager.

“He has learned under someone very good in Roberto Martinez, however, I’ll be hoping that we manage to beat them.”

Cowie, who is learning the management game well himself under County boss Malky Mackay, explained what impresses him about the Hibernian head coach.

He said: “Shaun was very intellectual; he thinks about the game a lot.

“He wasn’t someone who was very vocal in the dressing room, but he was very professional and knew his body.

“He would train brilliantly and things like that. He’s very articulate, and I’m sure he’s trying to take that into management.

“It takes time as we all know, and hopefully after Saturday he can kick-start again.”

County wary of Hibs – despite results

And Cowie, well aware of a dip in their opponents’ results, insists no one at the Dingwall club expects anything other than a testing afternoon.

He added: “Hibs are a very good team. They’ve got great options within their squad.

“When Shaun first went in, he got off to a flying start, and now all of a sudden the results are going the opposite way.

“By all accounts, they’re not playing badly. They’re a possession-based team who like to have the ball a lot, and they’re going through that spell where they’re maybe getting punished and it’s up to us to make sure we do that again.

“It won’t be easy, just because they’re on a wee bit of a difficult run we won’t underestimate the quality that they have.

“However, we’re confident. We’re looking forward to it as we do to every game.”

Staggies hit road with confidence

County go into this tussle on the back of a 1-1 draw at home to Livingston last Wednesday thanks to a late goal from on-loan Southampton defender Kayne Ramsay.

Cowie insists their form since the New Year offers them reasons to believe they can score a second win of the season over the Hibees, after losing 3-0 at Easter Road back in August.

He said: “We’re very confident, because we’re in good form.

“It’s been a tough couple of weeks, but we’ve come out of it with two wins, three draws and a defeat – in the last minute away at Dundee United, which we were obviously frustrated with.

“Going into another game at Hibs, we beat them here and they beat us earlier on in the season, so it’s got the making of a great game.”

League split is fast approaching

After a hectic spell since returning from the winter break, County had last weekend off due to being knocked out of the Scottish Cup.

However, they are a mere seven matches away from the split, where the division breaks into top and bottom sections of six clubs for the last five fixtures.

Cowie admits the fast-approaching run-in means they’ll be looking up the way in a bid to continue their rise.

The Staggies number two said: “It gets to December and before you know it it’s February.

“It gets away from you very quickly, and that’s why it was important that we came back from the break and came back in good form to get points.

“As everyone can see, it’s very tight in the league. There are a lot of teams in good form and picking up lots of points, so it was really important that we did that.

“We now go into the final stretch of the league nearly, and we’re in a great place, a great moment.

“It’s about building on that and making sure we keep progressing up the league, because we really believe in the group that we’ve got that we can look up the way.”