Hearts players all fired up, says Daly

Former Hearts coach Jon Daly believes the anguish of last year’s William Hill Scottish Cup final defeat will provide a spur for the players in Saturday’s semifinal against Hibernian.

Ex-Dundee United skipper Daly was in Craig Levein’s coaching team when Hearts took the lead through Ryan Edwards.

But a controversial penalty allowed Odsonne Edouard to level before the Celtic striker struck a late winner.

The Irishman said: “Some of them have been to the Scottish Cup final against Celtic and came very close to winning it the previous year.

“So they will know how big an occasion it is for the club and the fans and they will want to give the fans something to shout about, especially against their biggest rivals.

“The year Hibs won it they came back from two goals down at Tynecastle and went on to knock Hearts out. That still stings a lot of Hearts fans.

“It’s difficult to win these competitions and get to the final and when you get the final and get beaten, it does eat away at you, the ‘what ifs’. What if we got that decision or what if we held out a bit longer?

“When you do get back into those situations, you want to remedy that and make sure you don’t feel that same anguish, but they have got to get past a tricky tie against a good Hibs team and focus on that.”

Daly has experienced the other side of the coin when helping United win the trophy in 2010.

“I can’t believe it’s 10 years ago but we had a 10year anniversary back in January before everything kicked off with Covid,” he said.

“It was probably welltimed or we wouldn’t have had it, we’d probably have had a Zoom party maybe...

“But it was incredible. It does only feel like it was a couple of years ago.

“From a professional level it was probably the best week of my life. You go and win the Scottish Cup and then I had a stag do in Ibiza for a week. T he celebrations just kicked on and it was an incredible week.

“When you’re a kid and you’re good at football and playing schoolboy football, you normally play for a successful team and you win medals and trophies and you just think when you go into professional football that that’s going to continue.

“You quickly realise that it’s very difficult to win trophies and to win the Scottish Cup with Dundee United was a massive privilege and something that will live with me forever.”

Daly left Heart sin January soon after the appointment of Daniel Stendel but the German has since been replaced by Robbie Neilson.

And Daly has been impressed with Neilson’s work after Hearts won their opening five matches.

“Robbie’ s done a remarkable job,” said Daly, speaking at a media event organised by Scottish Cup sponsor William Hill.

“His recruitment has been excellent.

“He has recruited boys who have either been in Scotland before or have played in the UK and understand what ’s expected.

“That helps with the settling-in period and you can see they have all gelled really well.

“The areas he has recruited in have been key, the wide areas especially. They have probably been crying out for a number of years to recruit in those areas and get the level of player needed.