Where to now?
Cup final defeat harder to take thanks to a poor second half showing...

Where do we go from here?  That's the question being asked by Hibs fans this morning as more than a few wake up with hangovers from the Hampden performance and the post match discussions.  A decent enough attempt in the first half gave way to a poor second in terms of our chances and as a game of football.  For those watching on TV, it wasn't the greatest of spectacles while those at the ground had to endure what was simply an ordinary game for the most part.  There were some signs that Hibs could have done it though, Stephen Dobbie's willingness to have a go when everyone else around him wanted to walk the ball into the net for example, but these were few and far between as the time ticked away and Davie Hay out-fought Williamson. 

Many people have started calling for Williamson's head already as Hibs come away from a game to re-focus on SPL survival once more, and with the club being in the 'lofty' position of tenth in the league, albeit just one victory away from leaping above Dundee United who currently occupy the final top six berth, it's easy to see that point of view.  All week I, and many others including those in the last League Cup winning side, said that the way to win yesterday was to play the ball on the deck and use the wide men to get up the line and feed the ball into the middle for the likes of O'Connor to run on to.  Where did we go?  Up in the air to Andrews' and Rubio's strengths.  Tactically we got it wrong.  The team could still have been playing like that at the time that many Hibs fans finally got back to the Capital and they still would not have scored.

Hard to take for Riordan and O'Connor - as it was for 40,000 others there  (sns)

That brings round a second question - why do they persist in playing like that?  Is it due to the instructions from the touchline or because they ignore the instructions from the touchline?  I think, more often than not, it's the latter!  I've sat behind the dugout on a few occasions over the last couple of years and have heard Williamson screaming at the team to play in a particular way, only for the ball to be humped right up the park.  This inability to listen to what is being said was possibly the biggest factor in our inability to get past the Livingston defence for the majority of the 90 minutes.  When we did play down the flanks in the first half, and in particular down the right, we threatened.  In the second half we didn't.

In fairness to Bobby, he did attempt to redress the scoreline by going for an attacking formation as he commented on after the game.  “We are disappointed for our fans and for ourselves, but I could not have asked any more from the guys, I tried everything in my capabilities to get the best out of them to win the game. We were very positive with our formation, we went to three up front to trouble their back three and push their wing-backs further back, and when we needed to we ended up with five strikers on the park to try and get that goal back. I felt that if we could have got a goal they had gone – they were down on their feet with quite a few of them going down with cramp. If we could have got a goal and that wee break then we could have gone on and done something. We just could not get that breakthrough.”

Williamson will now have to turn his young team's attentions to Sunday's game at Easter Road against Celtic.  After yesterday, it will be hard to pick some of these players up for next day or two as the Hibs boss admitted.  “It will be extremely difficult to lift them again, cup finals are always going to produce a loser and it’s not great being that loser."  But unless changes are made in the side and how they play, we will continue to be losers, in the League, in the Cups and off the park where the finances need to keep coming in.