CUP JOY BRINGS RELIEF TO HIBS

No cause for alarm in the end at Easter Road

NOTHING much has come easy to Hibs of late. With that in mind, this victory over a slow-starting Raith Rovers will have been more than welcome thanks to its relatively straightforward nature. Pre-match bomb scare notwithstanding, of course.

There was really only one noticeably awkward moment for the home side over the course of the afternoon.

Leading 1-0 from a beautiful finish from Daryl Horgan, they lost their focus for a moment and allowed Euan Murray to advance up the right and pick out Tony Dingwall unmarked in the centre of the area.

He threw himself full-length at the ball, Roy-of-the-Rovers-style. His header, though, was more Roy Cropper from The Rovers Return — going quite some distance wide of the target.

Vykintas Slivka and Marc McNulty would exhibit no such profligacy as the encounter progressed, their goals easing the Hibees into the last eight of the William Hill Scottish Cup with no real cause for alarm.

By the time Murray headed home for the visitors late on, sparking a mini-rally that saved face if nothing else, the tie was done and dusted.

It looked, initially, mind you, as though the game might not get going at all. A suspicious package found pre-match in the South Stand sparked a full-scale alert and saw fans locked out of the stadium.

Unlike the Easter Road’s quest for a manager, now set to end within a matter of days, the police search threw up nothing of note. In any case, there has been enough in the way of explosions around the dressing room here of late as it is. If reports are to be believed.

‘The object was to get through to the next round and I think we did that quite comfortably,’ said caretaker manager Eddie May.

‘We probably could have scored a couple more.

‘After a hard game against Celtic during the week, it is not easy playing in a cup tie, but the boys played to a good standard and I am delighted for them.’

When the action did get underway, it was pretty clear from the off that there was unlikely to be a repeat of Rovers’ 3-2 win at Easter Road in the cup five years ago, when, of all people, Grant Murray, beside Eddie May in the home dugout yesterday, was in charge of affairs in Kirkcaldy.

The Fifers took far too long to impose themselves on the game properly. Second best in the early exchanges, they did have a couple of half-chances with Dingwall seeing one effort from distance saved by goalkeeper Ofir Marciano and another deflected wide before squandering that opportunity from the header 26 minutes in.

However, they were second best for the vast majority of the match and had weathered a couple of early problems — a goalbound McNulty shot blocked by Iain Davidson and a Florian Kamberi drive that fizzed just wide — before Horgan opened the scoring.

The Irishman cut inside from the right on to his left foot beyond a couple of yellow shirts and released a wonderful effort that flew high past Robbie Thomson and high into the net to the goalkeeper’s right.

After Dingwall had put the ball wide from that gilt-edged opening, Rovers seemed to lose heart for a period and, with eight minutes of the first half remaining, Slivka knocked the stuffing out of them completely.

Horgan moved in from the left this time and released a shot that took a wicked deflection before spinning high into the air and landing at the feet of McNulty just inside the area. The on-loan Reading forward held off his man and laid the ball off to the Lithuanian, who drilled a low shot past Thomson and into the corner for the fourth goal of his Hibs career.

McNulty got in on the act himself just before the hour. Horgan, later taken off with a problem deemed not too serious, was involved again.

He produced a slide-rule pass for McNulty to run onto behind the visiting defence and his finish underneath Thomson was clinical.

‘It was a step up for us and we didn’t get to grips with it early enough,’ said Rovers boss John McGlynn. ‘Just when we thought we were over that opening period, they got a goal and Horgan got too much time and space. We needed Hibs to have an off day, but they played very well.

‘I’m proud of the players that, at 2-0 we didn’t go on to lose by four or five. Marc McNulty went for £1million in the summer — and that’s £1m more than the players we usually come up against in League One.’

The impressive away support were, at least, given something to cheer with quarter-of-an-hour to play when Murray got on the end of a corner from Nathan Flanagan and buried a header in the net.

In truth, the game was end to end from there on in with Murray heading wide from a set-piece in the

last 10 minutes, but the result was never really in doubt.

Hibs got the job done without looking sensational and the win gives their new manager something concrete to work towards as he sets about gelling the players in the wake of a difficult time.

Tumultuous as season as this may have been, Hibs are now just three games away from a trophy. There’s still plenty to play for.