ALAN Stubbs reckons that William Hill Scottish Cup victories for his Hibs side and their championship rivals Rangers against Premiership opposition last night proves how much Scottish football needs them both back in the top flight. The Easter Road outfit ran out 1-0 winners in their replay against their city rivals Hearts in a match where both teams finished with ten men, while the Ibrox side booked their quarter final place in their replay against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park.
“It tells you that we are two very strong teams," said Stubbs. "I’ve said all along, we are two Premiership teams playing in the Championship. We need to try to get out this division as quickly as possible and I’m sure Rangers do as well. I think the Premiership needs two big clubs like ourselves and Rangers in that mix.”
Both the Hibs boss and his opposite number Robbie Neilson took issue with referee John Beaton's decision to dismiss two players within two second half minutes for throwing the ball away. First Hearts defender Blazej Augustyn was dismissed for hurling the ball away angrily, albeit in the direction of a foul which had just been awarded against his team, then Cummings - whose third minute goal separated the teams - was given his marching orders for throwing then kicking the ball away. Both men were already on a booking, with Cummings seeing his other caution for celebrating his goal at the Hearts' end.
“I think with the first one you always run the risk," said Stubbs. “I didn’t think he [Cummings] did anything wrong – he was standing there and didn’t make any actions towards their fans. Then with the second one he was booked for booting the ball away, and I’m led to believe that he was actually looking to fetch the ball and never kicked it away. Was there a case for saying the Hearts player influenced the referee? I think there was an element of that. But I thought the sending offs spoilt the game a little bit.”
"I don’t think Blazej’s is a sending off," said Neilson. "He throws it back in the direction of where the free-kick is. But it’s a decision that’s been made – it’s not going to change by me sitting here speaking about it. We’ve had two goals chalked off and a man sent off. We battled away and kept going, pushing and pushing to try and get a result but we didn’t manage it in the end. The tie for us was probably lost in the last 10 minutes at Tynecastle. Now we need to bounce back."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel