THERE is no good way to lose a cup final.
Tom Taiwo discovered that the hard way. The Falkirk midfielder had been part of the Hibernian side thumped 3-0 by Celtic in the 2013 Scottish Cup final, a day when no one in the Easter Road side covered themselves in glory. Nothing positive could be extracted from that experience. Ahead of Saturday's final against Inverness Caledonian, then, Taiwo had hoped for a strong, impressive Falkirk performance so that, even in defeat, he and his team-mates could stand up tall, look themselves in the mirror, and feel proud of their efforts.
The reality, however, was somewhat different. Falkirk did put in a strong display, in the second half especially. They rallied from a goal down, drew level with 10 minutes to go and looked the side more likely to lift the cup, whether inside 90 minutes or after extra-time. Inverness were down to 10 men and out on their feet. It seemed like there would be only one winner. And then came an Inverness counter attack, an unconvincing stop from Jamie MacDonald, and James Vincent was rattling in what proved to be the winner for John Hughes's side.
Manager Peter Houston gathered the Falkirk contingent together on the pitch at full-time and told them to be proud of their efforts. They could have done little more. It did little to lift Taiwo who confirmed that losing narrowly in a cup final hurt just as much as a heavy defeat.
"I had said before the game that if you come off the pitch and can look yourself in the mirror and know you've given everything you've got and given a good account of yourself, then you could probably accept that," said the Englishman. "But now it's happened it doesn't feel any better.
"It's really disappointing when you come out for the second half and I thought we were on top right from the word go. The second half obviously helped us, we then got the goal and I've never felt so in control of a game as a unit. I think we could only see winner so it was horrible to lose a sucker punch on a break. You're flooding men forward thinking there was only one team going to score.
"Distraught seems quite strong but that's how the boys were feeling at the end, especially seeing how the game panned out. It was a chance for us to go on to record an historic win. When you dominate a second half like that and you feel like you deserve something from the game, to come away empty-handed is a bitter pill to swallow."
Taiwo confirmed there had been no criticism from Houston at full-time. "He told us to take this disappointment and use it to push on next season and remember it the next time we reach a crucial match," he added. "More than anything he said he was proud of us and proud of the performance. That's what he said in the changing room afterwards. He said that if we had come away after a 4-0 defeat it would have been a bit embarrassing but the fact that every single Falkirk fan stayed until the end showed we gave more than a good account of ourselves."
MacDonald's failure to adequately deal with Marley Watkins' tame shot ahead of the winning goal saw the goalkeeper assigned a large part of the blame for the loss. Taiwo, though, was having none of that.
"I think when you look at [the shot] it was a difficult one to deal with. It bounced up high. He's obviously disappointed but with every goal there are usually four or five mistakes you can track right back. The goal has come from a ball into their box that has come out so you can say that as a midfield unit we've not dealt with it and then we've not deal with it as a back four. So you can't lay the blame at Jamie's door, especially when he's been as good as he has this season.
"We wouldn't have made the final if weren't for his performance in the semi-final. We win as a team and lose as a team. Jamie didn't take any of the accolades when we won the semi, he was focussing on the team effort. And now we'll focus on the team effort after a defeat. It was a team mistake that cost us the men."
Botti Bia-bia, who made a sizeable impact after appearing as a second-half substitute, was just as supportive of his goalkeeper. "Jamie's a great player, he does well and I'm sure he'll just keep his head high and he won't be disappointed," he said."No-one said much to him, but we know Jamie's good enough. He knows he's made a mistake. That's football."
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