HIBERNIAN sit seven points clear at the top of the Championship, are now just 90 minutes away from another Scottish Cup final and yet a fear of failure rattles around the corridors at Easter Road.
John McGinn said the word, Neil Lennon hinted towards it and the supporters, even in the wake of the quarter-final win over Ayr United, can’t shake off the feeling. This is a good thing.
Success for this football club will be promotion back to the Premiership, a league they have not been in for three seasons now. Even if they retain the Scottish Cup in May, and they have a chance to pull off what would be a remarkable feat, it would count for little if they slip up in the league and that’s the truth.
Lennon told his players to “park the cup” until the semi-final; his message that three draws in the league and a defeat in their last four game, all to teams in the bottom half, was not acceptable has got through, at least according to Neil McGinn.
“We know our main priority this season is to go up, to be promoted and most preferably as champions,” said McGinn. “We know how important the game against Dundee United on Friday is while obviously getting to a semi-final is great – but it’s a bonus.
“We ended the Cup hoodoo last season. Now our main aim is to get promoted.
“I think just winning the league would top anything. It’s important this club is flying high in Scottish football. It’s a club with huge potential, so it’s imperative for us to get back up there and start challenging again.
“Last season was a really difficult run and they don’t really come much tougher than Hearts away. So to go and earn a replay and once more get through, and now beat Ayr, we deserve to be through to the semi-finals again. We’re really proud of that.
“But if we don’t get promoted we’ll be failures again, that’s not something to be proud of. We know how important it is to get back up to the top flight. It’s all good and fair doing it in the cup, but we need to start doing it in the league.”
That they do and a win at Tannadice this Friday would take the gap to ten points. It would be difficult to see anyone catching them from that point on.
No Scottish team has even won promotion and the Scottish Cup in the same season and while Hibs are in a mood to make history, then they just tick off another notable achievement 12 months on THAT day against Rangers.
“I’d call it indifferent,” said McGinn when asked about the cup form compared to that recently in the league. “We can’t put a finger on it. But if we play like that against Championship opposition then I’m sure it will start to turn around. We’ve got a great opportunity on Friday to put a gap between us and Dundee United again.
“If we keep winning our games then we’ll be champions. We know we need to keep on doing that.”
Hibs need top flight football and the Premiership could really do with them returning as well. Fans of other clubs roll their eyes when hearing this, as they did when the same was said about Rangers, Hearts and also now about Dundee United.
All four of these big clubs deserved, in hugely different ways, to find themselves outside the Premiership; however, if Scottish football is to move forward, then we need Edinburgh derbies and the two Glasgow teams going through to Leith back on the calendar.
“It can’t be stressed enough how important for us it is to be back up there,” said McGinn warming to the theme. “We know it, the supporters know it and everyone else at the club knows it. We’ve been down here too long. Now we need to snap out of it and get out of this division."
When Hibs click they are a really good team. They were 2-0 up after ten minutes through a superb McGinn goal and a penalty, later disputed by Ayr, which was scored by Jason Cummings.
The moment of the match came later in the half when Ayr’s Craig McGuffie, of whom good things are being said, scored a tremendous long-range effort. His side were really in the game at that point only for defender Scott McKenna to get sent off for a ridiculous challenge on McGinn.
Hibs should have scored more but had to make do with a late goal from James Keatings which clinched the game.
Ayr’s Daryll Meggat, who had a fine match, bemoaned the penalty decision which he was involved in, he claimed his foul on Martin Boyle was outside the box, but his club’s priorities lay elsewhere.
“It would have been great to make a semi-final with a club our size but this season for us is staying in the Championship,” he said.
One club needs to get out that league, the other to stay in it.
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