John McGlynn relishing Hampden return with Falkirk better placed to succeed

John McGlynn is relishing the prospect of returning to Hampden in a far better position than his first trip with Falkirk after a 2-1 win over Dundee United.

Headers from Barney Stewart and Finn Yeats sent the Bairns into their second Scottish Gas Scottish Cup semi-final in four seasons.

They were a League 1 club in John McGlynn’s first season in charge when they lost 3-0 to Inverness in 2023 but have since won back-to-back titles and are on the verge of securing a top-six place.

McGlynn said: “We’re going back in a better position now. Our team, everything about the football club is better.

“A lot of the fans were there the last time but I think we’ll have a few more going this time.

“We were a League 1 club, now we’re a Premiership club, and we will go there with a realistic chance to get into a final.”

McGlynn added: “We were excellent in the first half, a good bit ahead. Our football was really good, we were bright, taking the game to United.

“If anything, maybe we should have been further ahead but fair play to United, to get the goal back right on half-time, which is poor game management from our point of view with opportunities to clear the ball.

“They took the initiative in the second half and they put us under a lot of pressure.

“Our players had to dig in, they had to fight, they had to head balls, clear balls, and basically just show a great spirit.”

Julius Eskesen fired United back into the game in first-half stoppage-time and they pushed for an equaliser. Zac Sapsford forced a good save from Scott Bain before hitting the inside of the post.

United boss Jim Goodwin said: “You can’t start games like that at this level. Simple as that. Falkirk put us on the back foot.

“First goal, we don’t put enough pressure on the shot on the edge of the box. The keeper makes a decent save through a lot of bodies, and then unfortunately the Falkirk striker is the first one to react. I feel we’ve got enough players back there ourselves to anticipate that.

“And then the second goal is a carbon copy of a number of goals that we’ve conceded this season, not defending cross balls into our box well enough, not covering the right areas, and we got punished for it.

“So we give ourselves a mountain to climb and we were very, very lucky to go in at half-time only a goal behind.

“In the second half, I thought we were the better team. Probably the last 10, 15 minutes, I thought we just ran out of a bit of steam. We ran out of ideas.

“But ultimately you can’t come out of the blocks as slowly as we did.

“That was our ninth game in five weeks and we certainly could have done without that game on Tuesday night against St Mirren. Falkirk looked a little bit fresher, a little bit sharper at the start of the game, and ultimately that was our downfall.”