Robbie Neilson has revealed he told his Hearts team to go and be “aggressive” as they mounted a valiant comeback against Celtic in the Scottish Cup final.
The Jambos were two goals down to the holders at the interval before headers from Liam Boyce and Stephen Kingsley forced the game into extra time.
The Gorgie side would fight back again in the additional period when Josh Ginnelly fired home from close range after Leigh Griffiths gave Celtic a 3-2 lead.
Neilson admitted there was no epic half-time team talk to convince his charges turning the tide was possible, though he did give a tactical insight into how Hearts wanted put the Glasgow club under pressure.
Ultimately, it would not be enough to wrestle the trophy away from Neil Lennon’s men, who triumphed on penalties after a pulsating 3-3 draw at the national stadium.
But Neilson told the ‘Away up in Gorgie’ show how he managed to motivate his stars to fight back from a two-goal deficit.
He said: "There wasn't really any tactical stuff, it was just about being a bit more aggressive in the press.
"We'd worked all week playing 3-5-2, trying to get out to their centre halves, their full backs and when it came to midfield trying to win it and we felt in the first half we were actually doing the movements but we weren't getting there and making contact with people.
“If you don't make contact against good players then they'll pop it round you, so the second half was just reiterating what went right for us because other than a worldie and a penalty, Celtic didn't have many more chances.
“We knew if we got a bit closer and were a bit more aggressive with them we had a chance of getting back into the game, which we did.”
In a special question and answer session with Neilson and his coaching staff, the Hearts boss and assistants Gordon Forrest and Lee McCulloch also touched on who chooses the pre-match playlist and which player currently tops the Tynecastle fine list.
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