Leigh Griffiths critical of referee

BURIED beneath his beeling over referee Craig Thomson’s hand in Hibernian’s horrific Scottish Cup final hammering by their greatest rival was an admission from Leigh Griffiths that the better team won. But, oh, was that smothered by the slaughtering the striker meted out to the official.

And, in fairness to the Easter Road side – despite their excruciating display – Thomson left himself open to criticism with two erroneous decisions. He was wrong to award Hearts a penalty for a pull on Suso Santana by Pa Kujabi. The incident was outside the box but the referee’s call allowed the Tynecastle men to move into an unassailable 3-1 lead seconds after the restart and earned Pa Kujabi a deserved second yellow.

And Ian Black should have been red-carded in the ninth minute when the midfielder slammed into Griffiths with his shoulder perfectly positioned to smash into the face of his opponent. Astonishingly, Thomson deemed the assault worthy of no more than a lengthy lecture.

On-loan Wolverhampton Wanderers striker Griffiths had his beefs over both moments but took his sense of injustice too far in also mumping about two penalties Garry O’Connor should have had and his manager Pat Fenlon being sent off. Television showed the Hibs employees didn’t cover themselves in glory over both, the Hibs manager giving the Hearts fans the full “up yours” gesture while O’Connor was guilty of Swan Lake meets swan dive with his clumsy leaping when he felt contact from Danny Grainger.

“It was all about Craig Thomson today,” Griffiths grumped. “He wanted to steal the show a wee bit and he did that with the penalty award and sending the gaffer to the stand. It spoiled the game a wee bit. It was a stupid penalty. James McPake asked the TV guys to see a replay of the incident and they said it was never in the box. To lose the penalty and be a man down and then as soon as they scored the penalty the boys’ heads went down a bit and after that they just scored the fourth and then the fifth.

“Suso [went down too easily] in the first half and then I booted the ball against his hand not long after he won the penalty – and he went down holding his face. That sums him up. We’d been warned about that during the week and we knew from playing against him before what he’s like but it’s one of these things you’ve got to live with and not give him the chance to do that.

“On top of that, I thought we had a stonewall penalty. From where I was standing I thought it was a stonewall penalty and I know Garry thinks the same – he’s in that dressing-room absolutely fuming. He said he was denied two penalties, I can’t think what the second one was but from where I was Danny Grainger definitely got a hold of his shirt and it’s a penalty all day long for me.

“To get beat in a cup final is pretty low but to get beat 5-1 off your nearest rivals is absolutely disgusting. I felt the penalty in the second half was a big turning point because when we got the goal just before half-time I felt we had a bit of momentum.

“The gaffer said Ian Black should have been sent off for his challenge on me right at the start of the game. It’s one of those things, you go up for the ball and he comes through the back of you. It’s done with now, there’s not much we can do about it. Blackie’s a good player and ran the show for Hearts and he’s going to do well in England if he decides to go down there. But I don’t want to take anything from Hearts because Rudi Skacel’s two finishes were good and Danny Grainger’s penalty was unstoppable so you can’t argue with any of that.”

Yet Griffiths, one of a clutch of temporary Hibs players whose Easter Road stints ended at Hampden yesterday, essentially did just that. Unlike his team-mate Mark Brown. To his credit, the goalkeeeper made no attempts whatsoever to offer any pleas in mitigation.

“It was a long second half,” Brown said. “To be fair to Hearts, on the day they were the better team and they deserved to win. It was hard to tell [about the penalty kick], it was definitely a foul but whether or not it was in the box I don’t know. It just made the job even harder for us. It was pretty much impossible. The way Hearts passed the ball when we were down to ten men showed how difficult it was going to be. They compounded the misery more by scoring two more goals. They were horrible goals to lose. One deflected off James, one went through his leg, a couple of sclaffs in the box, the penalty.

“We feel for the supporters. As players we’ll take it on the chin and get on with it, but the Hibs fans have had so many years of misery. We thought this year we had the chance of winning the cup for them but unfortunately it wasn’t to be. They came through in great numbers, the support was great, but we didn’t do our job. The chance to win the cup for Hibs against Hearts was magnificent. I wouldn’t say [there is a jinx]. People make out how long it’s been since Hibs won the trophy, but for players it’s a game and we trained well, we were confident, we prepared well, but Hearts were just better on the day.

“It’s going to be a long summer for everybody. There are no other games to take your mind off it and there’s going to be a lot of soul searching for everybody in trying to get over it. Come next season, whoever’s at the club, they need to pick themselves up and try to get a club the size of Hibs back where it should be, in the top six and pushing for the European places.”

O’Connor, who gave a distressed 53-minute display in the last game covered by his current deal, had pledged to run down Princes Street naked if Hibs ended their 110-year separation from the old trophy. In the end, it was his Hibs team who were cruelly and embarrassingly exposed.

Taken from the Scotsman