James McPake full of praise for his striking pals

HIBS captain James McPake paid tribute to the club’s two strikers, Garry O’Connor and Leigh Griffiths, after they claimed a goal each at each end of this William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final to propel Hibs into the final. The duo were, said, McPake, the difference between the two sides.

“Our front two gave us plenty today,” he said. “On his day Garry [O’Connor] is as good as anyone in this league and wee Sparky [Griffiths] has popped up with two minutes to go, calm as you like, with that bad-foot finish, and that’s it. We said last week that they could be the difference and they proved that today.”

Yet that does not tell the full story of a game that was decided as much by the clash between Hibs’ central defenders and Aberdeen’s pairing of two big strikers in Scott Vernon and Rory Fallon. It was the decisive victory of the Hibs pair of Paul Hanlon and McPake, with the Hibs skipper winning a bottle of champagne for his man of the match performance, that underpinned a win built as much on defensive grunt as forward inspiration.

“It was a hard day’s work, but we had a great start,” admitted McPake. “We knew they were going to come at us and they had two big lumps up front so they played to their strengths, got the ball up to their front players and, all credit to the lad [Fallon], he scored a great goal – I don’t think he’s ever scored one as good as that in his life and I don’t think he ever will again. But we showed great character to come back and then hold on.”

McPake, right, graphically illustrated the Hibs’ pairing’s dominance when, with less than three minutes of regulation time remaining, Aberdeen cleared the ball downfield towards the Hibs half and McPake came through Vernon to win the header, turning defence into attack. That header led directly to Griffiths’ winner.

“Winning headers is my job, and if I’m not doing that then I’m quite harsh with myself,” he said of that moment. “It’s the same with Paul, and I think we won the battle today with their two big boys. They maybe hoped to overpower us but I don’t think that worked today. That was crucial.”

If McPake’s header helped make Griffiths’ goal, the little striker brought his own celebration to bear, pulling a dummy out of his sock in tribute to his two young children, who were watching from the sidelines, before celebrating in front of the Hibs fans. For a player already booked for over-enthusiastic goal celebrations – and who was therefore one yellow card away from missing the final – it was a high-risk course of action.

“I stuck the dummy down my sock before the game and to be honest I forgot it was there,” he said afterwards. “It was only when I saw my daughter that I remembered it. I had to be careful because I got into trouble for celebrating before, but I did it because it’s my wee boy Rhys’ birthday on Monday and then my daughter Kacie’s 11 days later.”

However, long before then, both Griffiths and McPake admitted that the important business of avoiding relegation is already casting a long shadow over their celebrations. If they are to fully savour the Hampden occasion Griffiths described as “a dream come true”, both players emphasised the need to ensure SPL safety as quickly as possible.

“There have been a lot of people having a go at us this season for our league position and rightly so because we’re a big club and we shouldn’t be where we are in the league,” said McPake. “But just because you’re a big club it doesn’t mean you’ve got a divine right to be higher up the league, and to be automatically safe at this time of the season.

“We’re striving for success ourselves, we want to go down as heroes at this club and hopefully that’s something we can do with getting to this final and going on and winning it. But for now, and maybe even more importantly, we’ve got to go on and concentrate on the SPL and getting ourselves safe in that. Then we can look forward to the final.”