A second half triple whammy from Hearts floored Inverness Caley Thistle and ensured that Craig Levein will lead the Edinburgh club he has served with distinction into a cup final for the first time.

After a largely laboured first half, Hearts found a new gear in the second period and goals from Uche Ikpeazu, John Souttar and a Sean Clare penalty eased the Tynecastle side into the Scottish Cup showpiece for the first time since they won it in 2012.

Hearts had injury concerns over the influential duo of Ikpeazu and Peter Haring but their respective aches and pains had cleared up sufficiently while Inverness, the cup winners in 2015, were without the suspended Coll Donaldson.

On a bright if rather parky day in Mount Florida, the jittery, sizing-each-other-up opening exchanges ran about as smoothly as the Cathcart Circle during a major signalling fault. It certainly wasn’t what you’d call flowing, sweeping football. Tom Walsh plonked an early header over while Aaron Doran engineered a shooting opportunity for himself only to slice the ball high and wide. At the other end, Hearts caused some palpitations in the Inverness rearguard with a menacing flurry which ended with Jake Mulraney’s shot being blocked by some frantic defending.

There was plenty of honest industry on show although not a lot of invention and at times it was as scrappy as Steptoe’s yard. Hearts tried to prise some openings down both flanks but the Inverness backline remained resolute and continued to thwart the advances. The big, bustling Ikpeazu was giving the Inverness players plenty of defensive chores to deal with but when he did break through on 26 minutes he seemed to take an age to decide what he wanted to do before finally sending a fairly timorous shot into the clutches of Mark Ridgers.

It was very much nip and tuck with very little between the teams but Hearts emerged for the resumption with considerable gusto as Levein’s men upped the ante. Olly Lee served notice of the Hearts intentions with a raking drive on 46 minutes which Ridger’s superbly tipped over at full stretch. Aidan Keena then had a go from distance too as the pressure intensified. A goal was on the cards and it arrived on 49 minutes. Inverness were slow to react to a short corner and after Mulraney’s powerful ball across the six yard box was only partially cleared, Ikpeazu pounced to bundle in the opener.

Heart were emboldened but Inverness showed their determination to get back into affairs and came within a whisker of restoring parity on 57 minutes. From a direct free-kick right on the edge of the box, Joseph Chalmer’s curling strike was brilliantly parried onto the bar by the flying Zdenek Zlamal. Jamie McCart then swivelled and lofted a fine finish into the top corner of the net but the flag had already gone up to signal offside much to his disgust.

Just as Inverness were making their presence felt, Hearts hit them with a hammer blow on 65 minutes. A corner from the right was inadvertently flicked to the back post by Charlie Trafford and Souttar jabbed the ball home from close range. It got worse for the Highlanders with 18 minutes to go when Ridgers sent Ikpeazu toppling in the box and from the resulting penalty, Clare calmly stroked in a third.

With the stuffing well and truly knocked out of Caley Thistle, Hearts coasted to to the whistle and a final date with either Celtic or Aberdeen.