By Hibernian FC

"It’s been a long time coming. When the fixtures first come out, it’s always the first game that you look for, so the excitement probably started to build a few weeks ago. Fortunately for us, we’ve had quite a few big games in that period, but probably over the last two weeks, it’s been particularly difficult putting it to the back of our minds. We’re fully aware of the challenge that we’re up against, but also the occasion, and we’ll need to try our best to manage that on Sunday."

Speaking ahead of the game, Gibson mentioned the volume of coverage on this fixture:

"When you’re involved at this club, there is no bigger game, so these are the ones you want to play in. Rightly, the players are excited by it and it’s one that we want to go out and get three points in and I’m pretty sure if we prepare the way we normally do, we’ll give ourselves a good chance of doing that."

Dean spoke about his preparations ahead of Sunday's match.

"We’ll train a little bit more on grass this week, but apart from that, we’ll be pretty much the same. We’ll analyse Hearts the way we analyse everyone else and we’ll go and put our own game plan together, so nothing will really change in that respect. First and foremost, it’s a league game and then secondly, it’s the Capital Cup, so we need to treat it as a league game. We need to try and get three points and then hopefully we can enjoy the celebrations at the end of that if we do our jobs properly."

Gibson rotated the squad against Glasgow Women, he provided an update on players available for Sunday.

"Everyone’s fine, no injuries or anything from Sunday and there’s nothing that’s happened this week. We’re good to go, everyone’s available - that can be a good and a bad thing, because unfortunately, not everyone will make the starting XI, but we’ll our out the XI we feel is best to go and win the game and then we’ll see if we’re right come the end of the 90 minutes."

Speaking on the opposition, Dean added: "Both teams are completely different to last season. I don’t think it’s a bad thing for the league - now, you go into these games and you can’t really pick who’s going to win before the game, it’ll be the team that turns up and performs the best. Hearts are a good side, one of the better sides in the league, they’re fourth for a reason. But that then flips the mindset and mentality because we’re chasing them for a change, so the pressure, I think, is on Hearts to stay in that position they’re in. Now we’re doing the chasing, it’s a completely different mindset going into this game than it was previously."

With an expected record-breaking crowd at Easter Road on Sunday, the manager expressed his gratitude and encourages supporters who haven't already got their ticket to do so.

"We’d love to grow that number even more and we can only do that if people are willing to come along and watch. What I can say is that it’ll be a very good game of football. Very competitive, international players on the pitch that are playing in an environment that they’re probably not used to but it’s one that both teams will relish - hopefully for us, we come out on top. If anyone’s not got a ticket yet, please do come and watch and if it’s your first women’s game, I can guarantee that it won’t be your last."

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