STEVEN HETHERINGTON is confident Alloa can go toe-to-toe with Dundee United when the sides meet in the Scottish Cup on Saturday.

The Wasps already met the Arabs in the Challenge Cup at Tannadice this season, with the Championship side needing two late goals to secure victory.

Hetherington feels home advantage can help the Wasps, and believes the pressure is all on their opponents.

The midfielder told Advertiser Sport: "When we played them earlier in the season I thought we matched up with them. For long spells we were the better team.

"They will obviously want to progress in the Scottish Cup and will be desperate to get a good result to kick on in the league as well. But I think they underestimated us last time.

"It's a cup tie so there will be a different feeling. It doesn't matter how you get the win.

"They're one of Scotland's biggest teams and they will bring a crowd, so there will be a good atmosphere and it will be a great game to play in.

"The pressure's on them to come to us and everyone's expecting them to turn us over. They need to come to our place.

"We have just got to take that in our stride and compete with them as best we can."

The Wee County outfit saw their recent good run of form suffer a blow as they lost out to East Fife last Saturday, courtesy of a winning goal from former Alloa man Mark Docherty.

But Hetherington insisted that the squad have already put the result out of their minds and are fully focused on their weekend cup showdown.

He added: "We know we didn't put in a good enough performance to win the game. We had to shuffle things about a bit because Callum Crane got injured but we should still have done better than we did, especially because we started so well.

"We managed to get back into the game after they took the lead but then we conceded straight away. It was just a bad day at the office. That's what disappoints us the most.

"I played with Sparky when he was at Alloa and we all know the quality he's got. It was a good finish and sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and admit that.

"It was just disappointing because we had only just got back in the game. The first one was just one of those freak goals that happens once in a blue moon.

"We can't dwell on it. We have to put it behind us and we've got a great game on Saturday against United. We are really looking forward to that one."