Why victory over Hibs at Hampden shows this is a special group of Hearts players who deserve to be cherished

Always a good piece of advice for our brittle existence on this planet but one which is often left unheeded. It feels like that is especially true of football fans. We tend to get carried away with the good times and subconsciously believe they’ll last forever. Nothing ever does and, unless you’re a big fat glory hunter, for the most part the experience of following a club is a seemingly never-ending cycle of fluctuations. For instance, one year you can find your club relegated despite plenty of investment. Then two years later you can finish in third place, qualify for eight games in European football and book a place in the Scottish Cup final for the third time in four years.

Were Hearts good against Hibs in Saturday’s semi-final? No, not really. They started very well but a combination of a poorly-conceded goal right after making it 2-0 and subsequent injuries contributed to a performance that was largely about holding on to the advantage they had and seeing it over the line. For anyone of a maroon persuasion, the last 70 minutes (and the second half especially, including eight minutes of injury time) took about ten years off their life. But as nervy as it was and considering so few players didn’t get anywhere near their usual standard, there was still a degree of expectation that things were going to turn out all right.

Of course, the history of the fixture played a significant part in that. As Shaughan McGuigan said on Friday’s A View From The Terrace (shameless plug, alert) “Hearts always beat Hibs”. It’s especially true of the bigger games and definitely the ones at Hampden.

But it also kinda felt a bit inconceivable that they would let down the fans in a similar way as the team did in 2016 when Hibs came back