ABERDEEN 0
With a bit of blood and thunder, plus a touch of thud and blunder on Aberdeen’s part, Motherwell muscled their way into the 133rd Scottish Cup Final.
Combative and near-chillingly efficient in their pursuit of a no-frills, long-ball game, the League Cup runners-up deserved this victory. Completely.
They quelled a period of early Aberdeen dominance with an opener, doubled it almost immediately and then choked any notion of a comeback with a third. And while the Dons contributed in a major way to their loss with glaring errors in each of their goals, the achievement of reaching two Cup Finals in the one season should not be underestimated.
“We are run by fans, we don’t have a big benefactor and we don’t have millions of pounds,” said manager Stephen Robinson.
“So to achieve two cup finals in one season is terrific credit to the club.
“The board back me to the hilt. We have ideas and sometimes they can’t afford it.
“We do things like buy medical beds off ebay.
“I’m sure there’s not too many clubs like us who do that.
“We do it to try to make the club better and I’ve had terrific support from the board.
“I’d love more, but when you get to cup finals it makes people want to sign.”
This one started with a bang, quite literally, with Greg Stewart left face down in the grass inside 10 seconds.
Andy Rose was the offender, clattering into the Dons loan forward’s back as he went up for a high ball.
The Australian was in the Steelmen’s side as cover for suspended Carl Mchugh and it was clear he was keen to emulate his club captain’s combative approach to the game.
This was never going to be one for the fainthearted and it seemed an equal statement of intent that Aberdeen’s captain for the day here was the statuesque Scott Mckenna.
It was the first time he had started with the armband and it was to prove a difficult experience for the 21-year-old, albeit a worse one for fellow defender Kari Arnason who had a wretched afternoon of it.
The Scotland international’s sclaffed clearance put Ryan Bowman in on goal for Motherwell’s second, the forward having bundled his way past the Icelander.
The official let it go and Bowman took full advantage, shooting into the net at the second time of asking when Joe Lewis parried his first attempt straight back to him.
By then, the Dons were already chasing the game thanks to a failed appeal to Clancy.
Dominic Ball, stand-in for the banned Shay Logan, it was who stopped dead to plead for handball against Richard Tait, whom video evidence showed certainly moved his arm to the ball, when the wing back nicked in to control Arnason’s header back.
As the referee looked on unmoved, Tait kept moving, driving to the byline from where he cut the ball back and across the goal.
It was the type of ball Curtis Main thrives upon and it was no surprise to see the shaven-headed striker get there first to prod home. Aberdeen manager Derek Mcinnes took his time to assess the situation but something had to change and in that respect Chidiebere Nwakali’s injury before the interval was fortuitous because it forced the issue.
Off went the Nigerian and on, in his place, came Gary Mackay-steven. The winger, who had been ruled not fit to start, made a near instant impact.
Ghosting across the front of the Motherwell box, he fooled the Steelmen’s backline with a beauty of a reverse pass straight to the feet of Stevie May.
Clear through on goal with only keeper Trevor Carson to beat, he should have done better than his skewed effort which flew wide. And they paid the penalty when conceding a calamitous third after the break to end it as a contest.
Rose’s long ball through the middle offered no obvious menace but Arnason could scarcely have made a worse job of dealing with it.
He sent his attempted clearance straight into the body of Main then, as the forward darted through to collect the rebound, he stumbled giving himself no chance to recover.
Main still had a bit to do and he did it perfectly, running in on goal before steadying himself momentarily to curl a left-foot shot past Lewis into the corner of the net.
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