Rooney adds fairytale touch to a Final where every Saint was a hero
ST JOHNSTONE 1 Rooney (31)
Coronavirus robbed them of a crowd and attempted to sabotage their Cup Final build-up, but Callum Davidson’s players were not to be denied their place in history.
Winners of the Betfred League Cup at the end of February, Saints followed up their earlier Hampden triumph when returning to seize the shiny prize of the Scottish Cup to set alongside it.
That made them the first team outside Celtic and Rangers to capture both domestic cup competitions in the same season since Aberdeen managed the trick in 1989-90.
And when their fifth-placed finish in the Premiership is also taken into consideration, it was the conclusion of what has been an astonishing season for the Perth club.
For the players and the manager alike.
Davidson, Tommy Wright’s assistant in the Scottish Cup win of 2014, has overachieved in his first year as a manager in a way that would make the writers of a Roy Of The Rovers strip blush.
He could be forgiven for thinking it is an easy game.
Shaun Rooney, ex of Queen’s Park, Dunfermline and York City, has scripted himself a similarly tall tale.
With his winner here, he duplicated his effort in the League Cup Final to become only the fifth player this century to score in both Cup Finals.
Rooney finished his day with a promise to “get right on it” but strip the promise of booze out of it and the phrase was the perfect description of Saints performance.
They settled well from the off and never dropped their concentration levels.
Craig Bryson was the first to create anything worthy of note, the 34-year-old’s quick feet allowing him to flip the ball past Hibs defender Ryan Porteous and in to the path of Chris Kane.
The striker had time and space to play with but opted for the firsttime volley and was unable to keep his shot down.
Much had been made before the game about the slickness of Hibs’ front three of Martin Boyle, Kevin Nisbet and Christian Doidge.
Callum Davidson’s are not short of their own skilful performers either and Glenn Middleton gave a demonstration of his talents when sitting Paul Hanlon down on his backside by teasing to go first one way then the other.
His reward was an opportunity to shoot on goal which he wasted by shooting straight at Matt Macey who had a simple task to save.
Hibs “Cup Keeper” was to have no answer, however, to the Perth side’s goal that arrived after half an hour.
Again, it involved a defender being beaten all ends up with David Wotherspoon duping Alex Gogic into thinking he was making for the by-line before turning back on himself.
The yard of space was all he needed to curl a peach of a cross to the back post where Shaun Rooney leapt above Josh Doig to power a header into the net.
It was a great goal and one which had Davidson leaping around, punching the air.
In fairness, Hibs had been warned. Rooney had scored against them in the League Cup semi-final before going on to score the winner against Livingston in the Final.
Even after the goal, they continued to give him space.
He had a real opportunity to make it 2-0 early in the second half when a deflection from Newell gave him effectively a free shot on goal.
His left footed effort was decent but Macey read it all the way and dived to make the save.
Hibs manager Jack Ross knew he had to do something or face watching the Final run away from his side.
He turned to his sub’ bench and sent on Jamie Murphy for Gogic.
With Jackson Irvine moving into the middle to allow Murphy to go out wide left, it was an attacking reshuffle
And with Melker Hellberg sent on in place of Newell the message to the Edinburgh side was clear – push forward.
The danger was leaving the door open at the back and they had their goalkeeper to thank for keeping them in it with a tremendous double save after Paul McGinn conceded a penalty with a push on Kane.
The Australian first threw himself to his left to keep out Glenn Middleton’s spot kick then leapt up to block Kane’s follow-up attempt.
A magnificent effort but to no avail with his teammates unable to breach Saints’ granite-like defence.