Hibs’ Head Coach Jack Ross praised ‘matchwinner’ Christian Doidge who proved his value to the team with a man of the match performance against stuffy Alloa at the Indodrill Stadium last night.
Peter Grant’s men took the lead against the run of play with a fortuitous goal after Ofir Marciano’s save rebounded off Paul Hanlon into his own net.
It took a double substitution six minutes after the restart to get back the impetus and Hanlon redeemed himself by getting onto the end of a superb floated corner from Stevie Mallan.
The ball fell to Doidge who scored at the second attempt.
Mallan again contributed to the winner with another floated cross which Doidge headed onto defender Nicky Jamieson’s head and into the net.
“It was a difficult game, I knew it would be,” Ross told BBC Scotland. “I expected nothing less because I’m familiar with Alloa and seen them a lot.
“It’s about progression and we’ve done that. This result is just as important as the one we had at the weekend.”
On match-winner Christian Doidge, Ross said: “The thing with Christian – and this is going to sound bizarre – is I think he scores most goals when he’s missing most opportunities because he gets in good areas.
“When he had a barren spell recently he wasn’t missing opportunities, but when he’s in this vein of form he will miss chances, but equally he scores too. He was the matchwinner tonight and again proved his worth.”
The semi-final draw takes place after the St Mirren v Rangers tie tonight.
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
