ANDY HALLIDAY was convinced his goal had clinched the Scottish Cup for Rangers in 2016, only for the silverware to slip through his fingers as Hibs won in dramatic fashion.
And the Hearts midfielder is determined not to suffer Hampden heartache for a second time this afternoon.
Four years ago, Halliday’s stunning strike 20 minutes into the second-half looked to have completed Rangers’ recovery from Anthony Stokes’ opener for Hibs after just five minutes.
Giving the Light Blues the lead, they looked to have one hand on the trophy.
But Stokes’ equaliser and David Gray’s injury-time winner left Halliday ruing what might have been.
He does not want that feeling again.
He said: “It was the goal that might have been. It is one of the lower points of my career. It was obviously very, very disappointing to miss out on the chance of a proper winner’s medal.
“It is something that has got away from me, certainly in my time in Scotland. I have a chance to rectify that on Sunday.
“We are coming up against a very good team who have dominated the league and domestic competitions in the last few years.
REAL BLOW
“But one thing I will say is that when you are in a final you have always got a chance. It’s one game, it is winner-takes-all. It is a game I am certainly looking forward to.
“When you score a goal in a cup final with 10 minutes to go, you’re thinking, ‘I could have scored the winner in a Scottish Cup final and won my first proper medal’.
“When that turns into a 3-2 defeat with the last kick of the game, it’s always going to be a real blow.
“To combine that with the events that happened after it, it was just a really surreal, shock moment. It’s one I’ll look back on and be extremely disappointed in.
“The unfortunate thing in football is that sometimes you do look back in football at moments in your career and it’s the ones that got away that stick out a little bit more.
ACHIEVE
“If I score a goal with 10 minutes to go, I certainly hope we can hold on this time!”
Halliday has won the Third Division with Livingston as well as the Championship and Challenge Cup with Rangers, but the Scottish Cup would top the lot.
He added: “It would certainly be my most important medal. It would be the best out of everything I have won.
“I certainly don’t regret anything within my career. But I will certainly be disappointed if I look back on my career and realise I never won any ‘real medals’. It is something I would like to achieve.
“Thankfully, I am going in to the game on Sunday with a chance to do that and a real good squad of team-mates behind me.
“Listen, we are the underdogs, but when you are in a final you have always got a chance and we realise with the quality that we have got in the squad that if we perform to the standards that we can we can win.”
