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This is not a rebuke of Hastie’s talents. The 20-year-old is quick, powerful and can strike from distance. He’s got the ability to have an exceptional career in football and is already one of the most exciting attackers to watch in the Scottish top flight. He should make supporters - hopefully including those who follow the national team - very happy for many years to come. But he didn’t deserve this nomination ahead of the likes of Celtic defender Kristoffer Ajer, Aberdeen striker Sam Cosgrove, or Jason Kerr of St Johnstone. Even Motherwell fans have been saying he’s less deserving than Allan Campbell, his team-mate at Fir Park.

Hastie played the first half of the season with Alloa, where he was good but not excellent, before bursting on to the scene in January. He’s made 13 top-flight appearances this campaign. It’s enough evidence to suggest there’s a cracking player there, but not enough to elevate him over some of his peers. Or, at least, it shouldn’t have been.

Jake Hastie, left, was nominated for the PFA Scotland Young Player of the Year award. Picture: SNS

We take a look at the voting process and how the Motherwell star benefited from the idiosyncrasies of the system to bag himself a place in the final four.

The SPFL or SFA have nothing to do with this

Every time something happens in Scottish football that people don’t like, the Twitter accounts of both the SPFL and SFA are suddenly bombarded with angry fans saying they are a “disgrace” and accusing them of being “corrupt”. With regards to the PFA Scotland Player of the Year awards, it’s got absolutely nothing to do with them. The players’ association organises the vote and the players vote on it. Remember Jake Hastie’s nomination the next time somebody claims that only ex-professionals should be pundits.

He got hot at the right time

Hastie won’t be the first and he certainly won’t be the last Player or Young Player of the Award award nominee to excel for a minority of the season. While performances (or in this case, appearances) count the same in September as they do in April, football is very much a ‘what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?’ type of business as recency bias reigns supreme. Stuart Armstrong getting a nomination for the top award over team-mate Scott Brown in 2016/17 is another example of this, though a bit less egregious, after the folically-blessed midfielder had only emerged as a top level talent in November of that campaign.

PFA Scotland began the voting the week starting the 8th of April. Hastie had scored against Aberdeen the week prior, taking his tally up to six goals in the ten league games leading up to the vote. Regardless of whether he deserved it or not, Hastie was at the forefront of the public consciousness when it came time for ballots to be cast.

The link with Rangers boosted his profile

Hastie went from ‘some guy playing for Motherwell’ to ‘that young boy linked with Rangers’ as soon as the Ibrox club’s interest became public. It’s absolutely not right that the latter is more important than the former when it comes to judging someone’s profile, but whatcha gonna do? Welcome to Scottish football! It wasn’t necessarily so important that Rangers were going to sign him. In fact, the week of the voting, it was believed that the deal had gone cold with one newspaper reporting that Steven Gerrard and Mark Allen had moved on to other targets. Just the link was enough to keep him on the back pages and at the front of everybody’s minds. And for any Celtic fan claiming this wouldn’t happen with them, how do you think Lewis Morgan has two caps for Scotland?

Celtic and Rangers dominate PFA Scotland Player of the Year nominations

He fits neatly into the spirit of the award

This probably wasn’t a conscious thought on the part of many voters, more an aspect of his footballing character which resonated a little bit more than other candidates when it came to this award. The Young Player of the Year award is open to any player in the SPFL who is 21 or younger when the season starts. This allows Kieran Tierney, who broke through at age 17, to win three successive gongs. He would’ve been in serious contention to win a fourth if he hasn’t struggled with injuries through 2019 to this point. While this sort of recognition is completely valid, when we think of the award we traditionally look to a talent who’s just emerged that season before considering others. Hastie may not meet many criteria categories for 2018/19, but he certainly does this one.

The age of other players were forgotten

This is an obstacle foreign stars typically have to overcome in order to get recognition for the Young Player award. If signed from outside Scotland, we tend to think of them as fully fledged professionals rather than prospects still learning their craft. What other explanation could there be for Odsonne Edouard to be left off the final shortlist? Then there’s Greg Taylor, Kilmarnock’s excellent Scottish left-back. Having been a staple of the Rugby Park first-team for the past three years, even this writer must admit to forgetting he was still only 21. He’ll even be eligible for next year’s award.

How seriously do players take this award?

Do the voters take their time thinking through all the potential candidates, looking back over results and goalscorers, watching highlights? Probably not. They’ll likely judge their opinions based on the guys they’ve played against, the guys they’ve seen on the tele and in the papers, and those that are fresh in their minds. And that’s fine, isn’t it? It’s only an individual player award. It doesn’t actually mean anything. Then again, you could apply that argument to everything in football. It may be daft, but we’re invested in the daftness and we get a little perturbed when things are judged wrongly.

How Motherwell and future Rangers winger Jake Hastie grabbed a YPOTY nomination