Scottish Cup: Griffiths would trade awards for win

Leigh Griffiths was clearly unhappy at having to collect a runnersup medal last year. Picture: TSPL

Such has been his goalscoring form this season, his presence has been required at numerous awards dinners, with his attendance required most recently at last Sunday night’s Scottish Football Writers’ Association dinner, when he picked up another footballer of the year award.

It is the third such title he has been presented with after scoring 28 times for Hibernian this season, but he would give them all up for a Scottish Cup winners’ medal on Sunday, when the Easter Road side take on Celtic. “It’s been surreal,” said Griffiths. “It is nice to get awards at the end of the season.

“But they’re not just for me, they’re for the team as well. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for my team-mates.

“And they have had a huge part to play in every award I have picked up. I’d definitely trade them all for a winner’s medal on Sunday, 100 per cent I would. It’s nice to pick up individual awards. But the Scottish Cup is a team award.”

While Griffiths must be aware that he is seen as central to Hibs’ hopes, he is quick to point out that there are others who, he thinks, can turn the game in his side’s favour. “There’s [David] Wotherspoon, wee Alex Harris, there’s loads,” he said. There is, he knows, an extra level of pressure on himself, as he prepares to make what could be his last statement in a Hibs shirt, although he has already informed Wolves, who have activated the additional 12-month clause in his contract, that he wants to  remain in Edinburgh.

“It’s not up to me, it’s up to Wolves and Hibs if they can agree something. I just need to bide my time,” he said. “But, as far as I know, this will be my last game for Hibs on Sunday. I don’t think there would be a better way to go out than to bring the Scottish Cup back here.

“It’s what you want to be involved in,” he added. “You don’t want to be finishing eighth in the league and then going on holiday. You want to be playing in big games and this is one of the biggest games of all.”

“There’s still pressure on us, especially from the Hibs fans who want us to bring that cup back. But Celtic go into this game the overwhelming favourites.

“You could say all the pressure is on them to deliver the double. So we will go out there and play our normal game and hopefully that is enough on the day.”

Griffiths can imagine what awaits should Hibs upset the odds, and bring the cup “home” to Leith, where it last resided in 1902. In the absence of Scottish Cup-winning sides, supporters have venerated those who  managed to at least give them some joy in the League Cup, which Hibs have lifted on three occasions.

“You still hear about the 1991 squad that won the Skol Cup,” said Griffiths. “Then you have had a couple of Scottish Cup  finals the club have been involved in – obviously Hearts last year and Celtic in 2001.

“We got beaten that day so hopefully we can turn the tables on them and get a win. I sat and watched that game in the house. We lost 3-0 so, hopefully, that doesn’t happen again.”

The striker is conscious of where Hibs went wrong last year, in the humiliating 5-1 defeat by Hearts. Although he was one of them, there were too many on-loan players in the starting line-up. The prospect of defeat did not fill some of them with enough horror. Those players, of course, could simply pack their bags, and go back to their parent clubs.

One of Fenlon’s observations from the day is that the players did not “embrace” the occasion, something he admits was partly his fault, since he elected to take his squad away to Dublin in the days leading up to the final, in order to try to shield them from the intense build-up. Perhaps as a result, the players failed to rise to the occasion.

“We need to enjoy this,” stressed Griffiths. “Last year I didn’t think we enjoyed it enough. I think there were too many people in the squad who didn’t know how big a game it was. But there were a few players in there who did know. And we need to try and use that to our advantage this season.”

The striker was asked whether he sensed a lack of application among in his team-mates in the countdown to last year’s final? “It was only after the game  started that I realised that,” he said. “Any derby is special but a Scottish Cup final derby is even more so. But we’re back there this year and, hopefully, we can get a win this time.”

Perhaps Griffiths could even provide the winning goal, as he did in the semi-final against Falkirk, when Hibs completed a comeback from 3-0 down.

A goal would also make him Hibs’ highest goalscorer in a season for 40 years, since Jimmy O’Rourke and Alan Gordon each got more than 30 goals in 1972-73. Griffiths is currently on the same 28-goal mark reached by Steve Cowan in 1985-86.

Griffiths concedes he was trying “too hard” to score against Dundee on Saturday. “Any other game I could have scored maybe three or four,” he said. “But it’s one of those things. Hopefully it’s written in the stars that I can get the winner on Sunday and break Steve Cowan’s record.”