Players React To Falkirk Loss

A few players have been in front of the press following the Scottish Cup semi final loss to Falkirk.

Starting with striker Martin Boyle, he told the BBC that for him it was a ‘one sided’ semi final affair and Hibernian did absolutely everything but score themselves.

‘I can’t fault the commitment and the way they played, it was just that sucker punch at the end. Everything we did was positive, we just couldn’t get the ball in the back of the net. It’s probably the most one-sided match I’ve ever watched but that’s what happens when you don’t take your chances.’

With Livingston up next tonight, Boyle went on to say that all we can do now is focus on that game and look to get back to winning ways.

‘The main aim is to win promotion and the Cup was just a bonus along the way, so we pick ourselves up and go again. Livingston are fighting for their lives and it’s going to be a battle. They’ve had a few good results lately. If we play our normal game there is no doubt we can pick up the points. Hopefully we can put nine points on the board with three wins and see where that takes us.’

Head coach Alan Stubbs was also back in front of the press and he said the loss, disappointment and doom and gloom at the weekend could serve to galvanise the team for the remaining matches this season.

‘Yes, Saturday was doom and gloom. But it’s time to refocus again. We spoke about it making us stronger as a group, and I’m glad that we’ve got a game on Wednesday. Promotion, that’s how you pick the players up – if that’s not a pick-me-up, I don’t know what is. In football, when something doesn’t go your way, you have to respond. We’ve got the biggest pot of all still attainable to us. At the start of the season our main goal was promotion then after that we’d like to do well in one of the cups. We reached a quarter-final and a semi final and we’re third in the league – we’re doing all right.’

On loan Hull City goalkeeper Mark Oxley went on to say that we had to put the disappointment behind us and just look at every game now as a ‘cup final’ in the hunt for promotion back to the Premiership.

The Edinburgh News have him quoted as saying.

‘Promotion has been our target all season although we obviously know how much the cup means to the fans and how much it means to the lads as well. But we`ve put ourselves in the position in the league where we have important matches coming up, it`s not as if we`re sitting mid-table and can just let the season fizzle out. Every game from now on in is a big one and that`s something you look forward to as a player, being involved in such matches. As gutted as we are by what happened at Hampden it`s an experience we have to use in the games coming up to make sure we are not in that position again. The next three games and the play-off matches which will follow will be huge, we need to win them, to grasp that opportunity and make sure we do it.’

Oxley went on to say that having already secured the play off spot, the aim now is second place for the advantages that brings in the play off battles, so we have to look to bounce back against Livingston tonight and get the three points.

‘Sometimes football can be horrible. We were all buzzing last week having won the derby and going into the cup semi-final only to get a kick up the backside. There`s no point moaning about it, though. It`s gone and now we have to look to go again tomorrow night.’

Oxley admitted the disappointment at the Cup exit may have been easier had it not been such a good showing from us with the chances we had, but dominating the game made it even more gutting when the final whistle went as he felt we deserved it more than Falkirk.

‘Sometimes you can feel it`s not going to be your day. But we kept creating chances. We dominated the game, hit the post, hit the bar, I don`t think there was anything else we could have done but hit the back of the net.’

Midfielder Scott Allan said for himself focused a little bit more on the ‘bottler’ accusations thrown at the team in quotes carried by Herald Scotland.

‘That (bottler) is just part of football. If you don’t win games people are going to ask questions. It’s up to us to put that right in the play-offs. That’s the only way to answer them. We need to beat Livingston first so our last two games become really important in terms of finishing in second place, that’s our aim. Hopefully, Rangers slip up, but for us every game is massive now.’

One thing Allan did take from the game though was the importance of Hibernian taking their chances, as it’s something we need to be doing more of in games.

‘I think we have a good enough squad to go up, we just need to start taking our chances. In nearly every game we have had more than enough chances to win comfortably and we’ve not done that. The good thing is we are creating chances every game. I said at the weekend we only had ourselves to blame for not winning on Saturday, given the domination we had throughout the game and the chances we had. We just need to use that disappointment to move us forward. We need to win all of our games and hope someone does us a favour so we can finish second. Or, if not, then it will be interesting.’