Hearts 4 Hibernian 0
HEARTS star Paul Hartley admitted "it doesn't get much better than this" after scoring a hat-trick in the Scottish Cup semi-final rout at Hampden Park overnight.

Hartley's treble ensured Hearts, second in the Scottish Premier League, will return to the national stadium on May 13 where it will be huge favourite to lift the trophy against Second Division champion Gretna.

"It will be the first final for a lot of the players and to beat our rivals is fantastic," said Hartley, who has now scored six goals against Hibs this season, after a match where the loser finished with nine men after two red cards.

"To play the way we did today is exceptional and it's probably the pinnacle of my club career – it doesn't get much better than scoring a hat-trick in a semi-final at Hampden.

"The boys were right up for the game – I could sense all week we were going to win today," added Hartley of a display in which Edgaras Jankauskas scored Hearts's other goal.

Hearts, bankrolled by Lithuania businessman Vladimir Romanov, has seen managers George Burley and, more recently, Graham Rix both come and go at Tynecastle this season with Valdas Ivanauskas now in interim charge.

But Scotland midfielder Hartley said all the backroom upheaval had had no effect on the players. "It's not been difficult as we've just won 4-0.

"Today shows the character we have in the squad," said Hartley after the first Edinburgh derby Scottish Cup semi-final since 1901.

Downbeat Hibernian manager, Tony Mowbray admitted: "There will be a lot of fans heading home disappointed,"

"We had an opportunity but things didn't turn out as we would have liked with players being available (Hibs striker Derek Riordan was suspended). However, we competed well for long periods of the game."

But Mowbray made no attempt to hide his frustration at the way Hibernian, which last won the Scottish Cup in 1902, had conceded three second-half goals.

"When you break down and analyse the three we conceded in the second half, they were very poor from our point of view."

Ivan Sproule, for a reckless stamp on Saulias Mikoliunas and Gary Smith, for conceding the late penalty that saw Hartley make it 4-0, were both dismissed for Hibs, and Mowbray added: "We're disappointed to finish with nine in such a big game but we probably didn't have enough out there to win the game."

Hearts now faces surprise package Gretna and Hartley warned fans expecting the Edinburgh side to win the Cup for the first time since 1998: "We'll have a tough game against Gretna.

"They played very well yesterday (Saturday when they beat Dundee 3-0 at Hampden) and we're just delighted to be there."

But some of the shine was taken off Hearts's day by two worrying injuries.

Portugal defender Jose Goncalves, who had several minutes of treatment on the touchline, was stretchered off during the second half with what Ivanauskas later said is a suspected broken neck.

By that stage skipper Steven Pressley had already left the field, going off at half-time after sustaining his second head clash in a week.

Ivanauskas said the Scotland defender had concussion and will miss Thursday's (AEDT) league match away to leader Celtic, where victory for the host would see Gordon Strachan's team take the title.

HEARTS 4 (Hartley 28, 59, 88pen, Jankauskas 81) 45)
HIBERNIAN 0
Referee: S Dougal
Crowd: 43.180 at Hampden Park.