Alan Stubbs has told his Hibernian players to ignore Rangers' looming title victory to concentrate on getting their own form back on track for the Premiership play-offs.

A run of four consecutive league defeats has scuppered Hibs automatic promotion hopes and Rangers could be confirmed Championship winners this weekend if they win at Raith Rovers and Hibs fail to beat St Mirren.

Asked if delaying the inevitable would fire up his side for the trip to Paisley on Saturday, Stubbs insisted the focus would be purely on their own task in hand.

He said: "What will be will be. What happens in that game has no relevance on how we play or how we approach the game.

"Rangers will win the league, it is just a matter of time.

"We just need to concentrate on ourselves and get back to our top levels - and we will do. That's the one thing I'm very confident of.

"We are getting some important players back for us at the right time.

"We have missed them, as you do with any good players, but the most important thing is being at our strongest for the run-in."

The Easter Road head coach saw positives in the losses to Morton, Dumbarton and Queen of the South but was left dismayed by the 2-1 defeat at Raith Rovers prior to the international break.

They now sit six points behind Falkirk in the table - albeit with three games in hand - and Stubbs hopes the frank words in the dressing room after their Stark's Park failure will be a catalyst for recapturing their best form over the last weeks of the season.

Stubbs said: "The one thing we don't want to look for is an excuse.

"In some of the defeats I think our performances have been okay but the one performance where it was not right was the Raith game.

"There needed to be words and there were words spoken.

"They are a really good group and they know what they didn't do right and what they did wrong in that game.

"We still have a very exciting end to the season. We have had a good season - we need to make sure that carries on and becomes a very good season."