Long-serving Hay relishes his third League Cup final outing

Published on Monday 30 January 2012 01:10

GARRY Hay is relishing the prospect of his third cup final with Kilmarnock after their Ayrshire derby late show in the semi-final of the Scottish Communities League Cup.

Hay, 34, was in the Kilmarnock line-up when they last reached the League Cup final, losing 5-1 to Hibs in 2007, while he also played in the 3-0 defeat at the hands of Celtic when Henrik Larsson scored all three in 2001.

The midfielder said: “There’s a real happiness when you get to a final, and to beat your local rivals to get there is special. I didn’t realise quite how late it was when we scored; at that point you’re watching the game, not watching the clock too much, but we’d been pushing for the whole 120 minutes, so it was great for the goal to go in. When you have shots saved and blocked chances going amiss it’s difficult and you’re always wary of the sucker-punch, but I thought we defended excellently when we had to and we thoroughly deserved the victory. Obviously players want to achieve things and get to cup finals and win, but it’s for the fans ultimately; I think we’ve got as good a chance as any and we’ll look forward to it.”

Ayr defender Eddie Malone was devastated by his team’s late defeat but piled praise on goalkeeper Kevin Cuthbert, whose man-of-the-match heroics kept Kilmarnock out until the 109th minute. The two players were team-mates at St Johnstone, and Malone said: “Kevin is one of the best I’ve worked with and it didn’t surprise me – I told Gary Harkins about him before we played and said he’s one of the best shot-stoppers I’ve seen.

“He makes those saves in training every day and he’s been brilliant for us; we rode our luck a bit and Kevin pulled us out a couple of times with his saves.

“We were so close and once we got to the second half of extra-time, we were counting down the clock to get to penalties or even hit them on the break, but it wasn’t to be.”

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