NO ROOM FOR SENTIMENT
Ian: I shared a hotel with Hibs pal Tam for 2001 Hampden heartache but gaffers need to make tough final calls
You have to make hard decisions as a manager and ones you feel are right
IAN MURRAY TALKS ABOUT TOUGH CALLS AS A BOSS
IAN MURRAY felt the exhilarating highs and excruciating lows of cup final team announcement in one hotel bedroom prior to his only ever experience of a major showpiece.
That came in 2001 when the young Hibs full-back was delivered the shock news by Alex McLeish that he’d be starting the Scottish Cup Final against Celtic.
Unfortunately Murray’s room mate and Record Sport columnist Tam McManus was given the body blow that he wasn’t even making the 18-man squad.
It’s a memory which will never leave the now Raith Rovers boss. And it will be in his mind when it comes to announcing his team for his first final as a manager against Hamilton on Sunday in the SPFL Trust Trophy.
Murray said: “It’s very, very difficult because we’ve got players coming back from injury but a team that won 6-1 on Saturday.
“I said to the players before the game, ‘you guys are in pole position, don’t lose the jersey’.
“But you have to look at everything – tactical, the way Hamilton play, the way players have performed in the past for you.
“I remember for the 2001 final I was sharing a room with Tam McManus. He was the 19th man that day.
“He’d had a great season. He had scored in the quarterfinal in the last minute against Kilmarnock.
“He was devastated and rightly so. It’s a horrible moment. It was horrible for me rooming with him.
“He only found out on the Saturday morning and I’m delirious because I’m playing and I’ve got to try to temper that and console a team-mate.
“So, it’s never easy. You have to make hard decisions as a manager and make the decisions you think are right.
“If you make a decision you think is right deep down and it doesn’t work, then you have no regrets – and if it does work then you have no regrets.
“But you have to make tough calls.”
Murray might have thought that 2001 Hampden run out, which Hibs lost 3-0 to a Henrik Larsson inspired Hoops, would be the first of many finals. But despite two years at Rangers, a spell at Norwich and a return to Hibs, he never did get another taste with injury robbing him of a spot in the Hibs squad for the 2012 Scottish Cup Final defeat to Hearts.
Armed with that knowledge the 42-year-old will tell his players to ensure they have no regrets come fulltime at Falkirk on Sunday.
He said: “You can’t have regrets. I was only young, I didn’t expect to be playing.
“Alex pulled me on the Thursday at training and said, ‘I’ve messed you about all season, now I’m going to mess you about again’.
“I thought, ‘Here we go, I’m getting dropped’. But he said, ‘I’m going to play you at right wingback.’
“As soon as he said I was playing, he could have played me in goals, I didn’t care, I was so happy to be playing at Hampden against Celtic.
“But being 19 and playing in your first Scottish Cup Final, you think your next one will be three or four years away.
“And then it doesn’t come. So you have to grab opportunities when they come.
“Our players need to understand the situation and the concept of that horrible feeling that losing brings.
“And also understand it’s not the end of the season. We can’t let the high of winning or low of losing it be too much.”