HIBS Ladies captain Joelle Murray is confident that her side can continue their imperious cup form when they take on their bitter rivals Glasgow City in the SSE Scottish Women’s Cup final this afternoon.
Hibs have been unbeatable in cup competitions over the past two years, winning the League Cup for the past two seasons plus last year’s Scottish Cup and having defeated Glasgow City on their way to all three of those trophies, including in two finals, Murray is optimistic that they can retain the Scottish Cup at Livingstone’s Tony Macaroni Arena today.
“We’re feeling good – we’re all prepared and are feeling very upbeat and positive so we’re looking forward to the match”, the 31-year-old said. “We know we can do it in the cup competitions so we’re just hoping we can do it today and retain the cup for another year. I think it’ll come down to who plays better on the day – and who wants it more.”
However, despite Hibs’ invincibility in the cups, their league results against Glasgow City this season have been disappointing, with the capital side losing every league match this year between the two teams, including the penultimate game of the SWPL season a fortnight ago. City defeated Hibs 3-0 and with that result, secured their 11th league title and Murray admits to being somewhat perplexed as to why her side cannot replicate their cup wins in the SWPL.
“I don’t know why that’s happened – I suppose it could possibly be that the pressure is a little greater in the league games,” the midfielder said. “If we get beaten in the league then that’s us three points behind Glasgow straight away whereas with the cup games being a one-off match, I don’t know if that gives the girls an added incentive. In the league games we’ve played against Glasgow City this season, we’ve gifted them goals and when you’re up against a top team like them, you can’t afford to do that because you’ll be penalised. But in the cup matches, we’ve managed to avoid any of those slip-ups so hopefully we can do that again in this final.”
What will be vital for Hibs is how they bounce back from that league disappointment but Murray is confident her team are fully motivated for this afternoon’s match. And with the end of a long, hard season in sight, she is desperate to finish the year on a high.
“It was really disappointing to lose the league because we felt that this year, we could really challenge,” she said. “The week after that game, you could see that everyone was pretty down but we picked ourselves up and it was good to have this game to look forward to because it allowed us to switch our focus from negative to positive. We did it last season as well - we lost out on the league title but then we had the Scottish Cup final after that which went on to win so while we’re disheartened about the league, having this final is a big positive and gives us the chance to finish the season on a real high.”
Hayley Lauder will be up against her international team-mate this afternoon and it is likely that the 27 year-old will need to be in good form if the league champions are to break their cup hoodoo. However, with their record-breaking eleventh league title still fresh in their memories, Lauder is hopeful that she and her teammates can continue that winning form into this afternoon’s match.
“After winning the league, we’re pretty confident and this is a game we’re going into feeling good,” she said. “Our cup record against Hibs is not something that I’ve thought too much about to be honest - they might have won the cups in the recent years but if we can take our league form into this game then we should be fine. If we play how we know we can play, we can cause them a lot of trouble but Hibs have a great team – they have some really good young players mixed with a good bit of experience so we will need to be at the top of our game if we’re going to win.”
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