Rangers confirm status as team to beat with dominant win over Hibs in Sky Sports Cup final

Both side’s of football’s coin were visible at Tynecastle on Sunday afternoon as Rangers eased to their first ever league cup success in the Sky Sports final.

Kirsty Howat celebrates after putting Rangers 2-0 up during the SWPL Sky Sports Cup final against Hibs at Tynecastle Park. (Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group)

Goals from Lizzie Arnot and Kirsty Howat were sufficient to swat aside an insipid Hibs side who offered little to suggest at any point in the encounter that they could have added a record eighth triumph in this tournament.

The Hibs players hung around to the bitter end as Rangers popped champagne and cavorted in the ticker-tape. By contrast, there were tears from the Hibs players as they slumped to the turf, broken by a game in which they never looked likely of landing a glove on their Ibrox counterparts.

To add salt to the wounds was the singing from the Rangers dressing room as Malky Thomsons’s side enjoyed their moment. “There a is a time to smile and a time to cry in football and today is our turn to smile,” said Thomson.

Rangers' Kirsty Howat lifts the trophy after the SWPL Sky Sports Cup final win over Hibs. (Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group)

For Hibs, it might be a time for reflection. The most frustrating aspect of the defeat would not have solely been the final scoreline but the fact there was never a stage when Rangers looked threatened in the game. Hibs were cowed and for much of the game it was the Ibrox side who looked like the seasoned campaigners in this tournament rather than the team heading towards virgin territory by claiming the winners’ medals, something they had never succeeded in doing previously in this competition.

Lizzie Arnot had taken just 15 minutes to open the scoring when she let fly with a venomous left-foot drive that arched away from Hibs goalkeeper Benedicte Haaland. In truth, the goalkeeper will feel that she could have stopped it had she moved her feet a bit quicker before diving but the quality of the strike was unambiguous. If Hibs had looked tentative before that, the goal seemed to be an acknowledgement of their worst fears.

They offered little in return with the only real surprise that it took so long for Rangers to turn the screw and add a second goal. They had their chances in what was really just a procession towards Hibs’ goal for much of the second period. Indeed, substitute Kirsty Howat had whacked an effort off the crossbar before she added Rangers’ second when she turned on the edge of the box and sent a low right-foot effort into the bottom corner.

For Rangers, it is another confirmation that they have become the team to beat in the Scottish women’s game. There was a sense that they could have gone through the gears if they had had to against Hibs but other than a fairly meek effort from Krystyna Fields that was straight into the arms of Rangers goalkeeper Jenna Fife there was very little for the Ibrox defence to cope with.

If the result underlined the changing of the guard, Hibs will appreciate the complexities of keeping pace with the top trio within the game. In what feels like an echo of the men’s game it is the resources of Rangers, Celtic and Glasgow City that will sustain their current levels. What was key yesterday, though, in a one off game, was the naked lack of belief within the Hibs side. Rangers were ruthless in exploiting it.