Scottish Cup final: Pat Fenlon is satisfied Hibs are heading in right direction

The Irishman has experienced the strangest time in his managerial career, steering the Capital outfit to today’s historic all-Edinburgh Scottish Cup final while fighting relegation, only winning the battle to beat the drop in the penultimate game of the SPL season. Fenlon, snapped up from Dublin side Bohemians after Colin Calderwood was sacked following 13 faltering months at the helm, endured a tortuous start in Scotland but today he insisted he’d never thought for one second he’d made a mistake in moving across the Irish Sea. He said: “There are usually two ways a club changes manager, that someone is poached by another club because he has done really well and you inherit a team that’s been doing well. Or you get the job because things have not been going well and it was on that basis I got the job.

“The club was struggling, over a period it had gone downhill. We came in to make sure we started next season as an SPL club, to put our stamp on the team and the way we want things done within the club.

”But you cannot wave a magic wand and it changes overnight. I think what we have done, and I believe the supporters see it, is to have things going in the right direction.

Having enjoyed so much success in Ireland, Fenlon would have been forgiven had he harboured any doubts as to his decision to make the switch to Scotland. He insisted, however, that he had no such reservations. He said: “It was a fantastic opportunity I’d been given, to manage probably one of the top four clubs in Scotland. We are not at the moment, but we can be.”

A fact which has been overlooked should Hibs triumph today is that they’ll take a place in next season’s Europa League, something which, Fenlon admitted, has puzzled more than a few people.

He said: “I’ve been asked how we can finish second bottom and yet we could still qualify for Europe. It’s a quirk, that’s the way it works in football sometimes.”