WHEN it's been the same old story for 110 years why should Hibernian fans believe it will be any different this time?
Their captain, James McPake, sat at Hampden yesterday and made a decent stab at distancing the team he is now a part of from those which have reached previous Scottish Cup finals for Hibs, and especially a year ago. This side is made of far sterner stuff, he claimed. McPake scored in the 2012 final but, of course, it was a wretched, joyless day for him. He tossed his runners-up medal in a bag after the 5-1 defeat by Hearts and for 12 months it's been left, unseen by him, at his mother's house.
Hibs finished in the bottom half of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League and were beaten 3-0 when they last faced their cup final opponents, Celtic, at Parkhead in April. Even so, there is tentative optimism around the club about Sunday's final, maybe even a sense of freedom compared to the claustrophobic pressure of taking on Hearts a year ago. There will be no scandal in losing to Celtic. But the foundation of McPake's optimism was not the different identify of the opponents; rather it was the fact he detects so many differences in Hibs themselves.
Only five of the 14 players implicated in last year's shaming result are still at the club. Without naming individuals, or alluding to their weaknesses, McPake compared the 2012 team unfavourably to the current side. In terms of character and steel, the two sides were chalk-and-cheese, he said.
The captain has missed the past three games because of a back injury but has trained this week and, having taken a pain-killing injection, has told manager Pat Fenlon he is ready and willing for Sunday if selected. The pair of them have a close working relationship. "It was one thing the manager said when I sat down with him two or three days after last season's final. He said there were a few changes he wanted to make and the club wasn't doing what it should be doing. He's making those changes, there's a different mentality, a more hard-working mentality, there's a bit of steel about us, you saw it in the semi-final."
Hibs trailed Irn-Bru First Division Falkirk 3-0 at the interval only to resurrect themselves and win 4-3 in extra-time. "If we had been 3-0 down last season I guarantee you we would have been beaten five or six. We've managed to turn that around this season; that's the difference. A lot of it goes to him and the people he has brought in, the characters he's brought in."
Characters such as goalkeeper Ben Williams and midfielder Kevin Thomson, said McPake, had brought leadership and mental strength. In his opinion, the improvement in Hibs' resilience was demonstrated by the behaviour of the players at half-time against Falkirk, when they weren't so much flirting with another embarrassment but seemingly committed to it.
"I actually wish we had a video camera of the half time," he said. "The manager probably didn't have to speak for the best part of eight to 10 minutes. It was players having a go at each other, not grabbing each other by the throat or threatening to hit each other, but just saying 'this is what you're not doing'. Big players at the club, senior players taking it off the younger boys as well and taking it on the chin. That's why the manager could sit and not say much. It was refreshing for him. He maybe sensed it at the time, that we knew it wasn't good enough and we were going to go out and redeem ourselves any way we could.
"In my opinion, when the chips were down at Hibs last season no-one who was going to get in people's faces and say 'this what you should be doing, this is the problem'. There is plenty of that now."
It not only seems slightly cruel to grill Hibs players about last season's final but also gratuitous. This is a different team, in better form after six unbeaten matches, and playing a different opponent. The club's grotesque Scottish Cup record remains, of course. "I don't feel any baggage going into this game after last season," McPake said. "Yes, we want to win this cup but we want to win it for the fans, but not just for last year but for the 111 years it has been without the cup. It has been far too long.
"There is a bigger picture and the bigger picture is that it has been far too long since we've lifted the major cup, especially as we such a big football club in this country. There is more to the football club than last season."
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