Their hearts were broken ... then fans are left to

Comeback gives Hibernian genuine hope of ending 111-year wait for the Scottish Cup, writes Alasdair Reid

YOU hesitate to use the term ‘ healthy trade’ in connection with Greggs the Bakers, but the Aikenhead Road outlet was certainly doing brisk business yesterday lunchtime as the Hibs fans made their way to Hampden. In light of which, it is probably fair to suggest that the green-clad hordes in the North Stand were not just nipping off for an early pie when so many of them started streaming towards the exits after just half an hour of this game.

And at that point you would hardly have blamed them for taking their leave with just one third of the game played.

Until then, i t would have flattered Hibs’ efforts in the first 30 minutes to call their display execrable, for what had unfolded was a performance so unremittingly calamitous that its farcical dimension would not have been heightened one bit if they had brought Brian Rix into the technical area and started playing with their shorts around their ankles

Goodness knows, they might as well have been doing that for all the impact they had made until then. All credit to a Falkirk side that had seemingly pitched up at the national stadium under the impression they had metamorphosed into Barcelona on their journey down the M80, but the opposition offered by Hibs was pure slapstick, a catalogue of bungling and buffoonery from start to finish.

Or, r a t h e r, what their disbelieving fans clearly assumed was the finish. The sponsors of the William Hill Scottish Cup would have offered shorter odds against Frank Sinatra making a comeback at that point than they would against Hibs doing the same. They were dead on their feet, out for the count, holed below the waterline, damaged beyond repair. There was no way on God’s earth that they were heading for the final.

And yet they will be there on May 26, having won their place after a sequence of events of such jaw-dropping improbability that nobody would have blinked an eye at the finish had Lord Lucan cantered across the pitch on Shergar to give Leigh Griffiths his Man of the Match award. Yes, that would be the same Leigh Griffiths who had earlier missed a penalty as well as a couple of others that he would normally have converted with his eyes shut.

And the same Leigh Griffiths who explained afterwards that the language used in the Hibs dressing room at half- t i me had been as blue as the shirts of the Falkirk players who had tormented them for the previous 45 minutes. Griffiths is a complex soul, some might even say troubled, but there was a matter-of-fact directness about his recollection of that interval gathering.

“As soon as the third Falkirk goal went in, I fell to my knees,” said Griffiths, his expression betraying lingering bewilderment about what had just happened. “I couldn’t believe it. The manager gave us a right rollicking at halftime and the boys were close to throwing punches.

“And it wasn’t just the gaffer. It