Celtic complete the double
Gary Hooper's first-half double helped Celtic to a comfortable 3-0 William Hill Scottish Cup final win over Hibernian at Hampden Park which completed the domestic double for Neil Lennon's side.
The game turned in favour of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League champions as early as the seventh minute when Hoops keeper Fraser Forster made a great save from a close-range Eoin Doyle header.
Hooper ran up the park moments later and scored the first of two almost identical goals, both coming from Anthony Stokes crosses, with midfielder Joe Ledley sealing the win with a 79th-minute strike.
For Hibs, who were thrashed 5-1 in last year's final by Edinburgh rivals Hearts, their quest to win the competition for the first time since 1902 limps painfully on.
The afternoon started positively enough for the Easter Road side who were without skipper James McPake, ruled out on Friday with a back complaint. The Leith side, full of enthusiasm and vigour, should have taken the lead when left-back Ryan McGivern put the ball on to the head of Doyle eight yards from goal but the Irishman's header was brilliantly saved by Forster.
Hibs paid for that only a minute later when right-back Alan Maybury only half-cleared Mikael Lustig's cross from the right with the ball being picked up wide on the left by Stokes. The former Hibs striker turned and sent an inviting cross to the back post which evaded Easter Road stand-in skipper Ben Williams with Hooper confidently volleying into the net.
The Hoops' second goal came 31 minutes in, when Stokes' cross from the left again found Hooper at the back post and he headed it back across Williams and into the corner of the net.
Leigh Griffiths had half a chance in the 37th minute when a long ball from midfielder Kevin Thomson caught out the Parkhead defence but although the on-loan Wolves striker went past Forster, the angle was too tight and his attempted shot went across the goal with no real prospect of sneaking in.
Ledley put the icing on the cake when he converted a cross from Lustig which had been missed by Hooper for his hat-trick.
That was the signal for the Celtic fans to begin their celebrations in earnest as the Hibs support pondered another missed opportunity to exorcise their Scottish Cup ghost of 1902.
