Hampden hero Boyle savours his sweetest moment
FOR Martin Boyle, goals against Rangers are like London buses. After waiting his whole career to get on the scoresheet against the Glasgow club, he registered a remarkable firsthalf hat-trick at Hampden to send Hibs cruising into the Premier Sports Cup final.
The Australia internationalist opened the scoring at the national stadium as he steered Joe Newell’s corner home and added a second midway through the opening 45 minutes as he sped beyond the last defender and coolly slotted home.
A third arrived after he was felled in the box by Steven Davis, with the 28-year-old keeping his composure to rifle the ball home from the penalty spot.
Boyle has enjoyed his fair share of highs and lows during his career but was unequivocal in declaring this display his best yet.
“It’s top of the pile now,” he grinned. “I have scored a goal at Tynecastle which was a great moment and I have lifted the Scottish Cup, but I wasn’t on the pitch on the day. Moments
like this don’t come around very often in a short career, so you have to treasure them.
“The boys have shown character. Performances have dipped in the last month and we know it hasn’t been good enough. And our past results at Hampden have not been acceptable and we have had all summer to think about that.
“So we wanted to get back here and rectify that and we stick together, we believe in what the gaffer is doing here, he’s doing an unbelievable job.
“Let’s not beat around the bush, [Rangers] are a top team. We knew they were going to cause us trouble but I thought we dealt with it well, we dealt with balls in the box which was great to see.
“We managed to hang in there, which was fantastic. It’s a great result against the champions of Scotland.”
Hibernian captain Paul Hanlon found himself walking a disciplinary tightrope after picking up a booking within seconds of the game getting under way but the centre-half said that if anything, it helped his performance.
“I got told it was after 14 seconds but I think it helped me concentrate a bit more and added a bit more focus,” he said.
“We were up against a good team with good players and it wasn’t ideal – it wasn’t what I was looking to do at the start of the game – but I got through the match and it was an amazing win, absolutely amazing.
“We’ve had a lot of challenges building up to this match; a tough run in the league and then into the Covid outbreak so it’s been difficult, but we’ve all stuck together and as soon as we got back into training it was
a case of working really hard in preparation for this game and it’s all worth it when you come out on the right end.
“It was a complete performance and we showed every bit of our team today – defensively, attacking, working hard, quality on the ball – we had everything.
“But you need that to beat a team like Rangers on these occasions and I’m just delighted we’ve shown it today.
“There’s a nice bit of needle in these games now; both teams are really enjoying it.
“We’ve spoken for a long time about how good our performances against Rangers have been and how we’ve matched them, but we’ve not won the games.
“It’s difficult to do it every time but to show it again and come out with the right result this time is brilliant.”