Gary Deegan looking for redemption after Twitter gaffe

But the Hibs midfielder isn’t feeling sorry for himself. He aims to be proactive in rebuilding his reputation and hopes that impressive on-field performances will eventually eclipse any past misdemeanours.

It’s an attitude Easter Road boss Pat Fenlon will be hoping for from the rest of his squad. While Deegan let himself down on Twitter, the majority of his new team-mates suffered their own May humiliation, in the Scottish Cup final against this afternoon’s opponents, Hearts. That too is unlikely to ever be erased from the minds of many but if they show the same desire for redemption as their new signing, they could take the first tiny step towards it today.

It was a tweet to Hibs captain James McPake which saw Deegan fined and suspended for two weeks by his then club, Coventry City. The pair had been colleagues at the Ricoh Arena and when McPake was called into the Northern Ireland squad, the Irishman sent him a “jokey” message saying “Up the Ra”. It created a storm of controversy and any smile has long since been wiped off the repentant 24-year-old’s face.

“I have apologised before, when it came out,” says the contrite Dubliner, who Fenlon believes will add drive and determination to his team, “but it was something stupid that I did. As a player you have to realise that you are a role model for kids as well and you don’t want to be bringing up stuff like that.

“It was supposed to be just a bit of banter between us, no malice in it, and it was taken totally out of context and the club punished me for it, rightly so, and I have learned my lesson but I don’t want to keep talking about it, I want people to be talking about Gary Deegan at Hibs, doing really well. That’s what I’m looking forward to.

“I didn’t even think when I wrote it. It was silly. You see footballers writing all these daft things now and from my point of view I have learned a lesson and I just want to move on.”

Some of his predecessors at the club were similarly undone by social networking.

The postings of players out on the town just hours after that Hampden humiliation infuriated Fenlon, while the jocular tone of other status updates the next morning told him certain squad members were not hurting as much as they should be.

“A few left because of what went on after the Cup Final, definitely,” says the manager, who admits he didn’t want to see or speak to anyone in the hours and days after the match that stretched Hearts’ unbeaten run against the Leith side to 11 games. “You see some of the stuff after it, how people handled it and it allows you to make your mind up on players.

“You look at the boys on the pitch at the end, the likes of Lewis [Stevenson], Paul Hanlon, they probably feel it more than most and you saw the devastation on their faces. One or two others let us down on the day but you see which boys are disappointed  and which boys it didn’t really register with and we’ve tried to eradicate that from the place.”

The criterion for replacements for those evicted from the Easter Road club has been character. In Deegan, Fenlon appears to have a player with bundles of it. Speak to him for a few minutes and it clear that he would never countenance such capitulation.

“He’s combative and it’s what we have been missing in the group,” says Fenlon. “He is a good character around the place and he has a great hunger to succeed. He leads by example and he drags people around and gets people focused.” He also learns from his mistakes. While some players at Hibs have been instructed to remove themselves from Twitter and the like, Deegan has voluntarily shut down his Twitter account and would love to close that chapter of his life as well. Fenlon is happy to let him do so although he knows that some others will be less forgiving, but he says the lad he has known since he was coming through the youth ranks at Shelbourne and who has played for him at Bohemians, is tough enough to cope.

“I know him and I don’t think Gary even knew what he said to be honest, I don’t think he knows the consequences of that,” says Fenlon. “I know him so well. It’s not in his mind-set. There was no worry bringing him up here, definitely not.

“He will take pelters from supporters but the same supporters say worse during games with the same connotations. You just have  to live with that. If you’re willing to dish it out, sometimes you have to take it on the chin.

“I was amazed when I saw it to be honest because there are other players that you think… but him – no, definitely not.”