The joy of helping Aberdeen book a Betfred Cup final slot made up for 12 months of injury toil for Michael Devlin.
Dons defender Devlin was forced to battle back from a serious knee injury sustained while at former club Hamilton.
The blow he suffered on the final day of the 2016-17 campaign robbed the centre-back of an entire season as he underwent surgery before embarking on the long road to recovery.
But the pain and strife of his rehabilitation work paid off when he helped Aberdeen scrape past Rangers in Sunday’s Hampden semi-final showdown.
And now the 25-year-old is looking forward to his first final when the Dons return to Hampden on December 2 to take on Celtic.
“It’s special,” he said, “I tried to tell myself that before the game that when you’re going through rehab this is what you’re working towards.
“Coming to Aberdeen this was expected to get to semi-finals and finals so from that side of things, and on a personal note, it’s brilliant.
“It means a lot to the club and the gaffer, and all the players and staff and fans.
“Having a long-term injury maybe makes it a wee bit better but to be honest not many players get to a final in their career so even playing a semi-final in front of 45,000 or whatever it was today is great but all the sweeter to get to the final and beat one of the Old Firm to get there.
“We know it’s going to be another tough task (in the final) but a memorable moment in a lot of the boys’ careers but we need to go one further and make sure we win it.”
The Aberdeen supporters were outnumbered three to one by the Rangers fans on Sunday after failing to sell out their initial allocation of 16,000 tickets.
But after Lewis Ferguson’s late winner sent the Red Army into raptures, Devlin believes there will be no shortage of fans looking to make their way south for the final.
He said: “You just need to look at the last couple of finals the club has reached. The representation in terms of fans has been first-class.
“At Celtic Park for the League Cup final four years ago there was something like 40,000 there that day.
“So I don’t think we’ll have any issue selling our allocation this time.”
