Paul Hartley put Hibernian to the sword again with a hat-trick as Hearts reached the final of the Tennent's Scottish Cup with a 4-0 semi-final victory at Hampden on Sunday.

Edinburgh's big two had not met in the semi-final of the competition since 1901 but the Scotland star, who has scored six times against Tony Mowbray's men this season, made it a memorable day for the Jambos with two stunning efforts either side of half-time to give the Tynecastle side a 2-0 lead.

It was a miserable day for Hibernian, who then had Ivan Sproule red-carded for stamping on Saulius Mikoliunas before Edgaras Jankauskas embarrassed Zbigniew Malkowski to make it 3-0.

Gary Smith was also sent off late on and Hartley completed his treble from the spot for Hearts, who are now red-hot favourites to repeat their 1998 success when they face Bell's Division Two champions Gretna on May 13.

Afterwards Hartley admitted "it doesn't get much better than this" following his super show.

He said: "It will be the first final for a lot of the players and to beat our rivals is fantastic.

"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."

Hearts interim-manager Valdas Ivanauskas was in charge of the team on Sunday following the recent departure of Graham Rix.

But Hartley added: "It's not been difficult with the change of manager - today shows the character we have in the squad."

Taken from sportinglife.com