LEANNE Ross is hoping to take her tally of winners’ medals to 24 when Glasgow City play Hibernian in tomorrow’s SSE Scottish Women’s Cup final.
Both clubs are looking to be double winners this season. Hibs won the League Cup earlier in the season, while City clinched the league with a 3-0 win over today’s rivals a fortnight ago.
That result allowed Ross to collect her 11th successive league winners’ medal, on top of 12 in the two cup competitions – and on the face of it indicates City should be the strong favourites at the Tony Macaroni Arena.
However, Hibs were without suspended captain Joelle Murray and midfielder Lisa Robertson for the league game and both are now available. This time it is City who will be without two of their top players – forward Katie McCabe is on international duty with the Republic of Ireland, while Scotland cap Leanne Crichton is on a pre-arranged holiday.
Both players are victims of a decision to extend the season by a week to resolve a fixtures shambles. That has incensed the City hierarchy, and skipper Ross admitted: “It’s not ideal to miss these players, but it’s something we have to deal with.
“Hibs missed Joelle and Lisa a fortnight ago because they are big players for them, but at the same time we’ve played games when we haven’t had big players as well. It’s about others standing up and being counted.
“We’ve got a lot of players who have the big game mentality. We’ve had the upper hand in recent league games against Hibs, but they’ve had it against us in the cup competitions.”
The clubs are meeting in the final for the third successive season. City won 3-0 in 2015, but Hibs edged it on penalties last year.
Hibs full back Caitlin Michie has mixed memories of that game. “I came on for the last two minutes of extra time and I think I touched the ball once,” the Scotland under-19 internationalist said.
Kick off is at 4.10pm to accommodate BBC Alba’s coverage.
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