ROWAN ALEXANDER and Davie Irons will wake up this morning knowing they emerged from Hampden Park yesterday with a moral victory.

Sadly, we all know that doesn't always get you trophies and it's Hearts who will be parading the Scottish Cup around the streets of Edinburgh today.

After a fantastic season Jambos probably deserve to be cup winners.

But after watching tactically astute Gretna push them all the way to penalties I'm not convinced they were the winners on the day.

I know Rowan and Davie well and they will have done all the homework needed to try to stop the threat of the SPL side.

They started with a 3-5-2 formation and that was asking a hell of a lot of their runners on the flanks, Ryan McGuffie and Gavin Skelton.

The pair obviously have plenty of fuel in their tanks - for much of the game they had to cope with the runs of two players on either wing.

Yet they did that AND attacked well.

After Hearts dominated the early play Gretna began to get a grip on midfield and this is another area where the Second Division champs deserve a lot of praise.

Stevie Tosh, Davie Nicholls and John O'Neil are all guys you want in the trenches with you and they battled and scrapped to turn the tide.

Nicholls in particular did so well to snuff out the darting threat of Paul

Hartley. There aren't many players in the SPL who have been able to stop Hartley this year but Nicholls did.

Then after watching his side go a goal down to Rudi Skacel's expert strike we saw pro-active management at its best from the inspirational Alexander.

Only 10 minutes of the second half had elapsed and Gretna were losing by the narrowest of margins. In that situation many gaffers would wait but not Rowan - he wanted to win this game and changed his plan.

He took off Nicholls and switched Tosh on to Hartley to release David Graham into a three-pronged attack and go 3-4-3.

It was adventurous to say the least and paid off because Gretna forced their way right back into the game and claimed the equaliser their play deserved.

They were winning personal battles over the park and while Hearts were always a threat you started to sense that just maybe Gretna had done enough to stun the big boys.

Some of Jambos manager Valdas Ivanauskas' actions were a little surprising.

He used up all his subs inside 90 minutes which prevented Edgaras Jankauskas coming off when he was struggling with cramp. At the end of normal time it seemed Gretna were the side on the up.

I studied the body language of both teams and saw Hearts players being given individual talks by their manager while Gretna performed a huddle with Irons at the heart of it.

Could that inspire Gretna to go on and lift the trophy?

Sadly it wasn't to be as Hearts found their inspiration from Steven Pressley.

The skipper has been a rock all season and led from the front to take the first spot-kick then hold the cup aloft to the delight of the Jambo supporters.

It was a dramatic end to a tremendous day's entertainment and a memorable season.

And as I transmitted the match analysis all over the UK on Radio Five Live I feel we came so close to matching the drama of the FA Cup Final.

AS TOLD TO EWAN SMITH

Taken from the Sunday Mail