Heartbreakers' moment of glory

THE champagne flowed for Hearts while Rangers were left with a cocktail of emotions as the headiest era in their history ended with defeat in the Tennents Scottish Cup Final.

The fulltime whistle at Celtic Park on Saturday confirmed that Walter Smith's team, like Hearts in 1986, had forfeited both Championship and Cup in the last eight days of the season.

Hearts, victors by 2-1, were left with the feeling that this is as good as it gets.

They had certainly waited long enough to share such a joyful experience.

It was back in 1956 that the Tynecastle team last lifted the trophy with a 3-1 win over Celtic. Manager Jim Jefferies said: 'People have been going back to 1956 this week but, in future, they can talk about this team.' Hearts were favoured almost from the start with referee Willie Young awarding them a penalty for an offence which, television replays later showed, had been committed outside the box.

They were blessed, too, when Brian Laudrup hit the post late in the first half and Gilles Rousset denied substitute Ally McCoist a goal. Fortune seemed to favour them again when David Weir brought down McCoist after 86 minutes.

Rangers were awarded a free kick on the edge of the area rather than the penalty they claimed.

Rangers fans seemed to accept that the sun had set on 12 years of unprecedented success and left them, for once, without a trophy. Departing captain Richard Gough remained philosophical, saying: 'That's two weeks in a row now I've found myself congratulating other teams.

It's not the way it's been in my time.' Hearts had won nothing grander than the Tennents Sixes since collecting the League Cup in 1962 and, of course, had lost the finals of the more prestigious tournament in 1968, 1976, 1986 and 1996, the last of these badly to Rangers.

Jefferies said: 'It suited Rangers to hit us on the break so we decided this time that we were going to let them have the ball and try to break us down.

Given the players they were without, we thought they might struggle to do that.' So it proved after Colin Cameron had put Hearts ahead with the penalty awarded in the 38th second when Steve Fulton fell into the box after a challenge by Ian Ferguson.

They granted Rangers all the possession they should have needed to get back into the game, despite the absences of Jorg Albertz, Jonas Thern and Alex Cleland. But, on the few occasions they got through to Rousset, they found the French goalkeeper to be sound, not suspect.

The man whose gaffe turned the final two seasons ago made sterling saves from Rino Gattuso and Laudrup and excelled when he turned away the one free-kick that Lorenzo Amoruso did not drive either high or wide.

How Rangers missed the suspended Albertz in those situations. It was a matter of urgency with them to introduce McCoist when they did, at the start of the second half, to apply some potency to their finishing.

The experienced striker went some way to confounding Craig Brown's argument for leaving him out of the World Cup but not before Stephane Adam had put Hearts further ahead, while Thomas Flogel should have added a third.

Adam, Hearts' best outfield player, made Amoruso look anaemic when Rousset heaved a 53rd-minute freekick almost the length of the field. Adam moved away from the Italian to score with an angled shot.

Andy Goram, who should have saved that effort, fielded a header from Flogel with ease and Rangers began to believe there was a way back for them - one which McCoist, above all, was likely to find.

He struck after 81 minutes, taking a pass from Gattuso and beating Rousset with a low shot which signalled Hearts' most fraught spell of the game.

They finally survived it in the fourth minute of injury time with Weir, their stoutest defender, making a crucial tackle on Sergio Porrini.

'Those last 10 minutes or so were the longest of my life,' said Jefferies, 'and hearing the fulltime whistle was the best moment of it. I said beforehand that we'd waited long enough

for something like this to happen; that Hearts had been in the doldrums too long. But we've made good progress in the past three years and, given our resources, winning the Cup at last is a great achievement.

'We never reached any great heights but the important thing was winning.'

Hearts 2

Cameron 1 (pen), Adam 52

(4-5-1): Rousset; McPherson, Weir, Naysmith, Ritchie; Salvatori, Flogel, Cameron, Fulton; McCann; Adam (Hamilton 73 mins).

Booked: McCann, Hamilton.

Entertainment: **** Man of the Match: PAUL RITCHIE

Rangers 1

McCoist 81

(3-5-2): Goram; Porrini, Gough, Amoruso; Bjorklund, Gattuso, Ferguson, Durie, McCall; Laudrup, Stensaas (McCoist 46) Booked: Amoruso, Gattuso.

Entertainment: *** Referee Willie Young.

BRIAN SCOTT