Rangers 1 - 0 Falkirk: Novo's big dipper rouses giddy Rangers

ON A day when the sun beat down on Hampden we had a final that sizzled nicely. Nothing fried the brain quite like the seminal moment, a swerving howitzer from Nacho Novo 29 seconds after he came on to the field as a second-half replacement.

Wee Nacho, what a little devil he is. Falkirk had the best of it before he scored and had the majority of the ball afterwards, too, but in that one strike from distance he settled it and wrote himself into Rangers folklore one more time.

Double winners. Who'd have thought it? When the supporters were slaughtering Sir David Murray and Walter Smith back in January the very idea of achievement on this scale didn't even cross the minds of the disaffected. When they lambasted the club for "fire-sales" in the transfer window only a madman would have predicted it would have ended like this.

"Football! Bloody hell," as the man from Old Trafford once said.

Falkirk made it a good final. Not to rain on Rangers' parade, but Falkirk were the better team.

They embraced the occasion like a team who were playing their last match on earth. They weren't just mad dogs in a meathouse, roaring about and devouring everything in sight – although there was plenty of that kind of edge to their play. But there was precision and intelligence, too. They passed it about, at pace and with accuracy.

It wasn't exactly Xavi and Iniesta we were looking at, but Kevin McBride and Scott Arfield were too good – way too good – for Barry Ferguson and Lee McCulloch.

Ferguson started, but didn't figure as a force. If this was indeed his last game for Rangers he has the memory of a victory, but not of a particularly influential performance.

Most of the key battles bar the one that truly mattered – goals tally – were won by Falkirk. Certainly, the physical stakes were dominated by Hughes' team. Time and again they harried Rangers off the ball, hustled them with their pressure game and dumped them on their backsides. So much of what they did was good, but they needed more.

What they had to get was a goal, but it didn't come. They had close-run things, of course. In the 14th minute Neil McCann launched a looping effort that clipped the top of Neil Alexander's crossbar.

Seven minutes later and McCann had a more straightforward opportunity – and spurned it. And how it cost his team.

Darren Barr put a cross into the box from the right and Madjid Bougherra made a terrible hash of clearing it. The ball carried on to McCann who snatched at it in space and got his volley all wrong, his effort bobbling wide of Alexander's goal.

At the time you winced for Falkirk's prospects because chances like that don't come to the underdog all that often in cup finals and, really, McCann needed to put it away. You sensed he knew it too because he held his head in his hands for a few seconds after and had an angst-ridden look about him for a while.

Falkirk had mountains of territory and strung together any amount of passes but they couldn't do the needful. Instead, Rangers started to stir just before the break when a David Weir header was nutted off the line by Steve Lovell.

Had the team managed on the day by Ally McCoist scored at that point it would have been unjust on Falkirk. They didn't. But they did seconds after the restart.

At the break, McCoist decided to change it. Boyd hadn't had a kick up to that point and his manager yanked him out of the action and brought in that little nuisance, Novo, to help up shore up a well-beaten midfield. Dear me, McCoist hasn't made many substitutions in his short managerial life, but if he goes on to make a million more will any of them pay off as quickly and as handsomely as this one?

Novo's innate cheek made him try his luck from such a range after he received the ball from a Sasa Papac throw-in and when he launched it you knew instantly that Dani Mallo in the Falkirk goal was in desperate trouble. It swung away from him in the air and beat the flailing goalkeeper hands down.

The goal gave Rangers the lead, but it didn't give them an easy ride. Credit to Falkirk, they regrouped in no time and came again with all the purpose of before. They had the ball in the Rangers net after 77 minutes, but Carl Finnigan was offside when he scored. At least it gave them heart.

Even after Novo almost made it two with a close-range chested effort that went wide, Falkirk steamed down the other end and gave Rangers a terrible fright. Defensively, Rangers got themselves in a rare old mess, the ball travelling across their penalty area to Lovell, standing free on the right edge of the six-yard box.

Lovell put a shot in on goal from an angle. Not the sweetest shot. Not the hardest shot. But a shot. And it rolled past the beaten hand of Alexander and quietly struck the outside of his post.

That was that. The last chance. Falkirk had nothing more to give because they had spent every last ounce of energy by then. They did themselves proud.

As for Rangers, they have travelled a long distance since the dog days of January.

They're not dripping with quality, they're not even easy on the eye, but they're a winning team and how their neighbours across town must envy them this morning.

All a blur as match winner fails to see his shot hit back of the net

NACHO Novo admitted he did not even see his Homecoming Scottish Cup winner fly into the net as Rangers completed a domestic double by beating Falkirk 1-0 at Hampden.

Novo, who has struggled to hold down a starting place at Ibrox, scored a stunning 30-yard volley just 29 seconds after his half-time introduction this afternoon.

"If I'm honest, I couldn't even see it. It passed so quickly," Novo told BBC Radio Scotland. "I never saw it but I'm quite pleased for the goal. This was a really hard time for me. This will keep me going and looking forward to next season."

Novo applauded the performance of Falkirk, who more than matched Rangers for the majority of the game.

The Spaniard said: "It's a team which always plays really good football and tries to play football, and a really good manager as well. They've been a really difficult side for us but I'm quite pleased for us as well to win it."

Manager Walter Smith, who delegates much of his authority to assistant Ally McCoist for cup games, said: "It was always going to be a difficult match for us today the way Falkirk set out their team. Today, we never reached the levels we did do last week. The goal from Nacho Novo was terrific for us."

Smith admitted Rangers might have suffered a bit of a hangover after winning their first league title for four years last weekend.

"It was going to be a bit of a struggle to get everybody back up from that fantastic effort from us last week," said Smith, who refused to speculate on the future of midfielder Barry Ferguson. "I think you could see the game did take its toll."

McCoist also applauded Falkirk's performance. He said: "I think they made it difficult for us throughout the game. They didn't have a lot of chances at our goal and they only hit the post at the end there. I think Neil McCann hit the bar in the first half.

"I think overall we're just delighted to get the win. I'm chuffed to bits for the team."

Captain David Weir acknowledged Falkirk's first-half superiority.

"We were poor, they were very good," the defender said. "What we were doing wasn't working so the manager made a decision and that's what he's good at."

Of lifting the cup as skipper, Weir added: "It's a dream come true, it really is, and I'm going to enjoy every minute."

Falkirk manager John Hughes, who has been linked with the vacant posts at Hibernian and Aberdeen, was proud of his players.

He said: "All credit to them, they gave it a go. I think you know that with the fans staying behind. I'm so proud of them, I really am."

He added: "My game plan was to keep the ball, ball-retention, taking our time.

"I said at half-time, we could've done it a lot quicker and we were giving them plenty of chance to get back behind the ball. I said at half-time, 'Make sure we keep it tight for 20 minutes'. And one minute into the second half, bang."

Scottish Cup final result maps out Europe adventures for Scots sides

RANGERS' cup final win at Hampden over Falkirk yesterday settles the European issues for Scottish clubs in next season's continental competitions.

The Ibrox side had already booked their place in the group stages of next season's Champions League by winning the title. As a result, Celtic will enter the same competition in the third qualifying phase, the two legs taking place in the last week of July and the first week of August. Rangers' first game in the tournament commences in mid-September. Celtic will find out their third-round opponents on 22 June.

Falkirk, as a result of finishing runners-up in the cup, will enter the newly-formed Europa League in the second qualifying round, with the ties due to be played on 16 and 23 July.

Hearts benefit from Rangers' Scottish Cup success. They only have the Europa League play-off round to negotiate towards the end of August to get into the group stages, giving Csaba Laszlo's side more time to prepare for the start of the campaign.

Aberdeen enter the tournament at the third qualifying round, with the matches due to be played on 30 July and 6 August.

Motherwell, however, don't get much of a rest. They enter the Europa League at the first qualifying round, meaning their season starts on the 2 July, with the second leg a week later.

Mark Atkinson