'Unacceptable' mistakes but Hibs can work it out, says former QPR, Blackburn and Cardiff ace
Everything comes back to the training ground. The simple stuff. The basic defensive work. Even those dazzling skills that, for the very best, seem as natural as drawing breath. All are rooted in working hard, and working smart, when no-one else is watching.
Listening to Junior Hoilett discuss both the frustration and the joy of playing for this Hibs team, the Canadian international's entire experience summed up by the "bittersweet" emotions of scoring his first goal for the club in Saturday's dismal 2-1 home loss to Motherwell, the veteran's professionalism and dedication shine through. His suggested solution for all that ails David Gray's team at the moment, from infuriating defensive howlers to an inability to put the ball in the opposition net? Work it out. Then work it out some more.
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The 34-year-old, insisting that the buffer provided by a long and successful career does little to dull the pain of defeat, said: "No, no, it still cuts deep, still frustrating, especially the way we played, when you're dominating throughout the game and come away with nothing. It's frustrating.
"And, yeah, it's bittersweet when you score and that shifts momentum to go and try to get the second one. Then it shifts back, and they get the win; it is bittersweet.
"But I think we just need to take the positives out of the game as much as we could, then rectify our mistakes throughout this break. And work hard on the training pitch to come out to get our next win against Dundee United.
"It starts on the training pitch. I think we have to keep focus and make sure we're doing the small things correct and do our jobs. Right now it's errors that can be rectified.
"It's not major problems but it's what's hurting us at the minute so we have to start from the training pitch, and everybody needs to remain focused and switched on day in day out - and I'm sure that the results will turn.
"Since I made my debut, I've been enjoying every minute of it. I'm enjoying every day in training with the boys, it's a good group here. I just need to get the results. I'm at a stage in my career where I just want to go out and enjoy football and be a part of the group and win games."
While Gray accused his players of being "unprofessional" at key moments in Saturday's self-destructive collapse, former Blackburn, Cardiff, QPR and Reading winger Hoilett admitted: "To make errors like that is unacceptable. So we just need to switch on and start from the training pitch. Everybody needs to be more disciplined to do their jobs on the pitch and I'm sure we'll get the results needed.
"We have so much potential in the squad and you can see the last few performances we put out, the potential is there to go out and dominate games the way we did. But it's the small margins that are killing us at the moment and that's the things we need to rectify to get the results to push us up the league.
"If we took one or two chances in the first half of the game, it would have been different, I think. But that's football sometimes. It's a cruel sport.
"And right now, we just, like I said, go back to training and work on these small margins. I think on another day we would have scored two or three and the ball just didn't roll our way today. We just need to keep doing the basics right and make sure everybody is doing their job and switched on and be more disciplined to get the results."
Hoilett took his opportunity with such aplomb, setting up his defender and almost passing the ball into the far corner, that it looked almost simple. Deceptively so.
"For me, that's what I've been doing all my career to get the defender on the back foot and shift it and open up the goal and place it into the corner," he said, before dismissing any idea that it was quite so straightforward, smiling as he admitted: "I make it sound easy.
"But it's something that I work on daily. And that's what we need to do, get back to the training pitch to work hard on all the all our errors are killing us at the moment."
