Fatigue factor for Dons boss

The Dons descend on Easter Road on the back of painful Homecoming Scottish Cup quarter-final defeat to Dunfermline on penalties.Boss Calderwood admits he will have to consider shuffling his pack for the Hibs match after his team played 120 exhausting minutes on Wednesday night against the Pars.But he believes his players will be eager to avenge their midweek defeat with a win over Mixu Paatelainen's men."We will have to take the players' energy levels into consideration," he said."We will talk to the lads and see how they are feeling and we will need them to be honest with us."It has been a very demanding week for the players but I'm sure the ones who started against Dunfermline will be desperate to play again on Saturday and make amends for what happened the other night."One player Calderwood will not need to worry about being too tired for action is midfielder Mark Kerr, who is known for his high levels of stamina.The 26-year-old, who could be reunited with central midfield partner Gary McDonald following his return from a troublesome hip injury, was the star performer for the Dons against the Pars in midweek.Calderwood is looking for another inspirational display from the former Dundee United player tomorrow.He said: "Mark has wonderful energy levels and he is a massive player for us. Gary McDonald is also back in contention after his injury. We have missed him badly and it is a real boost to have him back available."Despite their below-par performance against Dunfermline, Calderwood believes Hibs will be expecting to come up against a much-improved Aberdeen side.He said: "We have a good record down there. Mixu Paatelainen was at the Dunfermline game and he will have seen that in phases of the game we absolutely dominated."Hibernian have been on a poor run by their standards recently, although they have won their last couple of games. They will know that they are in for a very difficult game."But they will go into the match with confidence after beating Hearts in the derby last week."They have got a lot of attacking options with Steven Fletcher, Colin Nish and Derek Riordan, who all have the ability of getting them a goal out of nothing."Calderwood knows it is imperative his players show a positive reaction against Hibs to atone for their Scottish Cup exit.He added: "It is vital we go and show loads of character and try to erase a little bit of the pain from the Dunfermline result."Last season, when we lost in the cup, we went on a strong run and just missed out on third place. The players have done it before and now they have to do it again."

Source: Team_Talk