Fran Alonso insists Celtic Women's Scottish Cup glory day against Rangers helped heal the hurt of agonising title miss

Celtic Women retained the Scottish Cup with a 2-0 win over Rangers at Hampden but it came after a painful week, revealed boss Fran Alonso.

Natasha Flint opened the scoring for the Parkhead club in the 65th minute from a corner, just a couple of minutes later they doubled their lead thanks to a Claire O'Riordan's looping header. Rangers thought they got back into the final through Laura Berry but it was ruled offside by VAR.

It was Gers manager Malky Thomson's last game in charge before he returns to the academy next season at Auchenhowie. Celtic have now clinched the Scottish Cup two years in a row and just a week after losing out on the league title on the last day to Glasgow City. It was the first time Rangers and Celtic had met in the final of the competition and was also the first time the showpiece game was hosted at the national stadium.

Alonso told the BBC: "Obviously I'm biased, but it would have been unfair if those girls didn't have silverware. I couldn't be any more proud. They get the silverware that they deserved. I can't wait to celebrate with our fans, our family.

"We were hurt, like you can't imagine how hurt we were. We were two minutes away from achieving our dream so it has been tough for the staff and the players. Wednesday wasn't the best training session, you could see the heads had dropped and then from Thursday we asked guys 'that's the past, we can make history still'.

"Back-to-back Scottish Cups, we never won it before last year - incredible. I am extremely proud of the girls, I think they deserve it and I'm sure they are going to celebrate tonight."

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