Daly reckons final agony can spur Jambos into another shot at glory

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

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.

“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’.

“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 Dundee 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.”