Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Brother comes first for Shinnie
ABERDEEN midfielder Graeme Shinnie admits his Hampden joy was tempered by brotherly concern.
Shinnie helped the Dons set up a Scottish Cup Final meeting against Celtic thanks to a 3-2 victory over Hibernian on Saturday but he toned down his post-match celebrations out of respect f or his brother, Andrew, who came off the bench for Hibs.
It was the first time the former Inverness team-mates had faced each other i n a competitive match and the stakes could not have been higher.
“We ’v e g o t a b i t o f respect there that I will comfort him,” the Aberdeen player said. “He will obviously be hur ting because they have been knocked out. So I will keep the celebrations on hold.
“We have supported each other in our careers since we started. We have never really had an experience like this before.
“He will be disappointed they have lost but now he will be hoping t hat we obviously go on and lift the cup.”
It could easily have been the elder Shinnie who was celebrating after a dramatic encounter that saw Hibs bounce back from t wo down before Jonny Hayes’ deflected strike earned Aberdeen the winner with five minutes remaining.
Even then there was a scare for the Dons when Hibs goalkeeper Ofir Marciano went up for a lastgasp corner and forced a good save from Joe Lewis.
Graeme Shinnie said: “We made it hard for ourselves with the start we had. But it shows t he character the team’s got. But the boys always had it in them and always had the belief that they could go on to win it.
“Our bottle and ever ything else would probably have been i n question but we answered.”