Giovanni van Bronckhorst beams in press conference as he speaks of pride, character and Scott Arfield

Proud Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst hailed the resilience and character of his team after they came back from behind to defeat Celtic 2-1 after extra time and seal a Scottish Cup final date with Hearts next month.

In what was an enthralling Old Firm derby at Hampden, Celtic took a 64th-minute lead through a deflected Greg Taylor strike and after the exertions of Thursday night, when Rangers needed 120 minutes to edge past Braga in the Europa League, the expectation was that Celtic would go on to power past their rivals.

However, Rangers dug deep and equalised via Scott Arfield on 78 minutes and went on to finish strongly, grabbing a winner on 114 minutes when Carl Starfelt deflected a Calvin Bassey cross into his own net.

Rangers now have the chance to lift the Scottish Cup for the first time since 2019 when they face Robbie Neilson’s Hearts on May 21 – a repeat of the 1998 final, which the Jambos won 2-1.

“It was a very proud moment for me to see my side play like that,” said Van Bronckhorst. “We had to dig deep after a demanding game against Braga. But I think today our character was phenomenal, especially because we knew that Celtic were coming at us fresh. In the moment the guys did terrific.

"In the first-half we created good chances to score. But when we got the goal against us we knew we had to dig even deeper. But in this moment we were there. The substitutions made quite a positive impact for the team – fresh legs. We controlled the game after that. You know when you are playing a semi-final and it goes to extra-time players get tired and make more mistakes. We know that when we scored in the second-half of extra-time it was a vital moment. Luckily for us we scored the winner.”

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