HIBERNIAN Ladies will have a fifth and final chance to end Glasgow City’s total dominance of Scottish women’s football when the teams meet in the Scottish Cup final on Sunday.
The two players chosen to promote the Ainslie Park encounter yesterday reflected the differences between the sides. Rachel Corsie, back at City on a brief loan from Seattle Reign which will end after the cup final, is vastly experienced.
Just 26, she won her 79th Scotland cap in Macedonia last week, scoring twice. She spent a year at Notts County before moving to America.
Siobhan Hunter is 21 and has only known life at Hibs, joining as a 12-year-old. She has played for Scotland twice, the second time alongside Corsie after she came off the bench in a 1-1 draw in Serbia in 2013.
City have two more players, captain Leanne Ross and Jo Love, with well over 100 caps each. Hunter was one of five outstanding young Hibs prospects in the Skopje squad, but all are still on the fringes of the Scotland team.
So far this season experience has prevailed – but only just. In the League Cup final, also at Ainslie Park, Hibs took the lead only to lose 2-1 in extra time.
Corsie did not feature in any of the four previous games between the clubs this term, arriving back in Scotland two hours before the last one, a 2-0 win for City at Albyn Park, which has been the only clear-cut result. Corsie said: “I know from following the games when I was in Seattle that the others were tight. It’s good that the two top teams are in the final. Either could win
“The gap between City and other teams was always going to close because there has been an increase in standards. Obviously Hibs have picked up, and Aberdeen, most noticeably, have pushed on again this season.”
Hunter has been unable to add to her two caps because the competition for places in the Scotland team is most intense in central defence.
But the young Hibs player doesn’t lack confidence. “I do think our moment may have come,” she said. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t win on Sunday
“Everybody in our changing room believes we can do it.”
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