Craig Levein praises Hearts for holding their nerve in semi-final

Hearts boss Craig Levein hailed his players for refusing to buckle to the pressure as they shrugged off first-half nerves to book their place in next months William Hill Scottish Cup final.The Jambos dominated the first 45 minutes at Hampden against John Robertsons Inverness but were booed off at the break by their own support after failing to capitalise.It was the second time in a matter of days that the Gorgie faithful had turned on their team after seeing them lose to bitter rivals Hibernian in last weeks Edinburgh derby.But this time there was celebrations at full-time as goals from Uche Ikpeazu and John Souttar before substitute Sean Clares penalty secured a 3-0 win and booked the clubs first appearance in the final of the competition since their famous 2012 triumph.Afterwards Levein praised his squad for holding their nerve to set up another Hampden clash on May 25 with the winner of Sundays semi between Aberdeen and Celtic.He said: Weve had a rollercoaster season but Im so proud of the players, how they dealt with the pressure.The pressure was the thing that was against us. We had more ability than Inverness but we had more pressure and they had less ability and pressure, thats why were favourites.Being favourites does make you worry sometimes about losing but they handled that very well and a result, of course, is us playing here in May.Levein is just two years away from clocking up four decades worth of involvement in senior football yet he has never won a major trophy.Now the 54-year-old hopes his long wait will come to an end.Its a very proud moment for me, he said. Ive done a lot things in football but to come back and win a cup with Hearts would be the best thing.Hearts first-half struggles were quickly forgotten about as Ikpeazu turned the ball past former Jambos goalkeeper Mark Ridgers four minutes after the interval when Jake Mulraney fired a dangerous ball into the six-yard box.Caley Thistle responded well but saw luck desert them twice as first Zdenek Zlamal produced a finger-tip save to force Joe Chalmers free-kick onto the crossbar before the officials wrongly chalked off a wonder strike from defender Jamie McCart.With those let-offs, Hearts pressed on and wrapped up the game. First Souttar pounced to net from an Olly Lee corner before Clare stroked home from the spot after Ridgers took down Ikpeazu.Deflated Highlanders boss Robertson said: Im incredibly proud of my players, my fans and my club.The first 45 we did the job we needed to do, which was to keep Hearts quiet and quieten the crowd. They were booed off at half-time, which was exactly the reaction we were looking for.They got their goal from a set-play, which is difficult to take. Its a wee ricochet and they score.Then the little bit of luck you need for a Championship team to beat a Premiership team is what killed us.Chalmers free-kick is incredible. The save from Zlamal is as good as Ive seen all season. Finger-tips is all it was but hes got it onto the underside of the bar.Then the second bit of luck we need comes with the offside goal. Its not offside. Jamie McCart is offside but its Jake Mulraney who plays the pass.That is again when youre hoping the officials pick that up. If you get one of them or both then all of a sudden its a totally different match.Hearts then went and scored another set-play and its game over.(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'});
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Andy Newport, Press Association Sport');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', '0aee58bc-2ed2-49dd-b9cd-626869a6cf5d');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:club-news,paservice:sport:football,paservice:sport:match-reports');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:football');
ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'Craig Levein praises Hearts for holding their nerve in semi-final'});