New father O’Hanlon bidding to add to his delight after memorable few days

VICTORY over Celtic tonight would be the culmination of an unforgettable few days for Hibernian’s Sean O’Hanlon – and the centre-half thinks his team have “a great chance” of pulling off the win.

Signed from MK Dons in the summer, the Englishman scored his first goal for Hibs on Saturday then, early on Monday, his fiancée Joanne gave birth to a boy. O’Hanlon has not had a lot of sleep over the last couple of nights, but is sure adrenalin will carry him through this evening’s League Cup quarter-final at Easter Road.

“It was certainly a memorable weekend,” the 28-year-old said yesterday before driving out to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary to take his partner and their son home. “We had a little boy, called Kieran, about five o’clock on Monday morning and everything’s fine. My fiancée Joanne was actually due on Wednesday, and the worry was that it might have happened then and there would have been a decision to make. On Saturday it was at the back of my mind, because I thought if it happened then, away to St Mirren, it might have been hard for me to get back.

“I was just delighted that we won on Saturday, got the three points, and I got my first goal as well, which meant a lot to me.

“Then, Sunday night, the waters broke. The baby finally arrived on Monday morning, so I’ve not been getting much sleep – and I don’t know how much I’m going to get. But I’m focused on Wednesday night. It’s a big game, so of course I’ll be up for it.”

O’Hanlon, whose goal helped Hibs to a 3-2 victory in Paisley, was excused training on Monday, but was back at East Mains yesterday as the squad ran through their final preparations for tonight’s game.

With Rangers having been knocked out in the last round, the elimination of Celtic would enhance the hopes of all the remaining clubs, and O’Hanlon believes his team are meeting the Parkhead side at the right time. “It would be a great way to round off a memorable few days if we could beat Celtic and reach the semi-final of the cup,” he continued. “We’re desperate to win, because we know if we can then the cup’s there to be won. Obviously the two biggest teams would be out and it would be there for anyone.

“We feel as if we’ve got a great chance. We’ve got home advantage and Celtic aren’t on a great run themselves, so hopefully we can take advantage of that. A team the size of Celtic should be in the top two, and if they’re not in the top two they’re not producing the goods on the pitch. Motherwell have had a great start, but Celtic should be second if they are not top of the league. They’re struggling a bit and it’s good that other teams, as has been shown over the past few weeks, take points from the Old Firm. That makes the league more exciting.”

With Leigh Griffiths scoring the other two goals against St Mirren, Hibs’ win at the weekend was their first of the season in which Garry O’Connor had not scored. O’Hanlon still expects the striker to be his team’s principal weapon. “Garry O’Connor is a great finisher and, if they’ve got a leaky defence, then Garry usually only needs one chance and he’ll score.

“Leigh Griffiths has come in and, although he’s not scored loads of goals, he, again, is a very tidy finisher. We know that, if we can create chances, then we can score against anyone. This one might be about hanging in, getting men behind the ball and maybe nicking the win in normal time – or even extra-time or penalties, like we did against Motherwell. We’ve got Celtic in the next league game as well and winning at the weekend definitely makes that a lot easier for us, knowing that we’ve got points on the board.

“We don’t have to put ourselves under pressure to beat Celtic because they’re the favourites to beat us and if we can get a point then that would be a bonus for us, even though we would like the three.” It is now five seasons since Hibs won the League Cup and O’Hanlon believes that, if his new club get back to Hampden in the spring, it would be a bigger occasion than the last final he was in, MK Dons’ win in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy in 2008. “We played at Wembley, in front of 55,000, and I managed to score as well,” he remembered. “It was a great occasion and the whole build-up to it all felt like a real big cup final – and it was for that level. It was a good trophy to win. What I experienced with MK Dons, I would imagine it would be twice as big if we reached the final here. With it being the capital city and Hibernian being such a big club, it would be a massive occasion.”

Hibs miss full-back Richie Towell tonight as he is on loan from Celtic and thus unavailable. Callum Booth could return. Mark Brown will start in goal instead of Graham Stack.