Hearts manager Robbie Neilson says his side are just at the beginning of their progression, and the cup final loss should not halt that.
He says: “Not winning it is a huge disappointment. We have to take that on the chin, move forward and reflect back and see it’s been a very good season. We’ve come up from the Championship, finished third, secured group stage football, got to a cup final, we just couldn’t take that final wee step.
“A lot has been made of Wednesday night’s exploits [Rangers in the Europa League final] but when you look at the team that went out only four or five of them actually played in it. The two guys they bring on [Ryan Jack and Scott Wright] score the goals and that’s the stage where we need to get to, the players we are bringing on are really influencing the game.
“We’ve hard hard times over the last couple of years but we’re getting there. We’re back where we want to be, but we need to build and step forward and come here and win, get closer to the Old Firm, get into the Europa League, but we’re at the start of it now.”
