Jefferies' side unwinds after a great season but are Hearts hope that win is Victory bodes well for Hearts' future

KEN GALLACHER

18 May 1998

THIS was always, of course, going to be the end of an era at Ibrox but the intriguing thought thrown up by the Hearts victory in this Scottish Cup final is whether it can also be the start of something big at Tynecastle

The team which has been pieced carefully together by manager Jim Jefferies presented a brave and credible challenge for the championship and finally were able to end the near 40 years' famine the club suffered without a trophy

It matters little this morning that Hearts had so little possession during the 90 minutes at Celtic Park

Nor does the controversy over referee Willie Young's decisions to give Hearts a penalty while denying Rangers one

All that matters today - and Jefferies was honest enough after the game to admit this - is that Hearts have won the Scottish Cup

There is the opportunity for them to build on this victory and the basis for the construction work will be the young players who, as I forecast they would, grew up on a historic afternoon

Defenders Paul Ritchie and Gary Naysmith were equally magnificent on a day when Rangers swept down on them in wave after wave of seemingly unceasing attacks

But neither of these young players broke under the pressure

Instead, they showed a maturity which will surely draw them into Scotland manager Craig Brown's Scotland squad in the near future

It had been important that Ritchie settled his immediate future with Hearts before the game, something which his manager emphasised following the game

That allowed the central defender to concentrate on the final and the task he had at the heart of the defence

The strategy decided upon by Jefferies and his right-hand man, Billy Brown, had been based on frustrating Rangers after losing 13 goals to the Ibrox club in four league games during the season

Said Jefferies: ''We talked about the way we would have to approach the game all through the week

''You have to remember that we had lost 13 goals in four games

We were ready to let Rangers have the ball but we wanted to have five men across the middle of the field

What we didn't expect was the early goal and that helped us to settle

'' Of course the arguments will rage over the decision but, in the end, Colin Cameron scored that opening goal after just a minute's play and the burden was then on Rangers to attempt to break down the Tynecastle defence, where Ritchie, Naysmith, and David Weir bravely stood firm

In front of them, Steve Fulton marshalled the midfield and it was in that area that the game was eventually won

Rangers, without the influence of such as Jonas Thern and Jorg Albertz, ran out of ideas

When Lorenzo Amoruso fell prey to the individual errors which have been scattered through the Rangers defence all the way through their troubled season, allowing Stephane Adam to move past him and strike the second goal in 52 minutes, even the most committed of Ibrox fans had to accept it was not to be their day

The Adam goal, well taken by the Frenchman, was the killer, even though it did inspire a Rangers revival which brought the game to life in the closing half hour but was never going to be enough to carry the Ibrox men to glory

Of course, veteran striker Ally McCoist, coming on as a substitute at the start of the second half, did drill a shot beyond Gilles Rousset for the Rangers goal nine minutes from the end and then featured in the later penalty claim as if he was underlining to Craig Brown that a mistake had been made in the selection of the World Cup squad

There was also a Brian Laudrup try for Rangers which hit a post in the first half but attempts on goal were too rare to trouble Hearts

The absence of Albertz was a sore blow as free kicks were awarded - all within the powerful German's range, and almost all wasted by the unfortunate Amoruso

Afterwards, Rangers manager Walter Smith admitted his dis-appointment and added: ''The bad news for the rest of Scottish football is that this is as bad as it gets

Rangers will be better over the next few seasons

''We had the worst start possible when we lost the penalty goal but after that we dominated for almost the whole match

We did create some chances but we couldn't take them and that cost us the cup

'' And so Smith steps aside and a new coach takes over

Many of the players will also leave and this was, indeed, a requiem for the Ibrox heavyweights, a season where not a trophy could be won, a season which ended in tears, but where the sorrow was tinged with defiance

That feeling was there as the fans acclaimed some of their heroes for the last time and there in Smith's after-match warning

Still, they stayed, too, to applaud the winners and the new Celtic Park provided a glorious backdrop to the Hearts players being acclaimed from every corner of the stadium

Now the two clubs must look to the future

Hearts must attempt to use this victory as a springboard to further trophy wins - Rangers have to see it as a watershed in their constant search for success

Taken from the Herald