Paul Hanlon insists Hibernian cannot let the disappointment of their William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final defeat to Hearts seep into their league season.
Amid some brutal weather conditions at Hampden Park on Saturday the hard-fought Edinburgh derby required extra-time after Easter Road striker Christian Doidge’s header had cancelled out Craig Wighton’s opener for the Jambos.
The tie then turned on two penalties.
Hibs striker Kevin Nisbet crashed his spot-kick off the bar before Gorgie forward Liam Boyce, who scored the winning spot-kick in Northern Ireland’s recent Euro play-off penalty shoot-out win over Bosnia-Herzegovina, made no mistake again from 12 yards to give the Tynecastle side a 2-1 win which sees them return to the final for the second successive season.
Jack Ross’s side have only lost two of 12 Premiership games and sit in third place in the table and Hanlon wants them to pick up where they left off despite being “bitterly disappointed” by the cup defeat at the hands of their great rivals who are currently in the Championship.
The defender said: “We put a lot into the game. There were big moments in the game that didn’t go our way.
“But we have to pull ourselves together, get back to our league form which has been great so far this season so we can’t let this result affect that.
“It will be sore for a couple of days but we need to move on and put it to the back of our minds because we have a big league campaign coming up.
“When we come back into training there will be a few days where the boys will be a bit sore physically and mentally as well.
“It is normal. We all care, we are all desperate to win and it hasn’t happened.
“It might take a bit of going again but come the next fixture we will be ready to go, there’s no doubt about that.”
