Aberdeen have been beaten several times this season. Often, and not unfairly, they have invited everything from introspection to incrimination. Today they don’t want to worry like that.
Any time you miss a game by a margin as narrow as an inch or two of the post that outlined the perfection and ruin of Ryan Duncan’s heartbreaking penalty, it’s natural to think of the smaller moves that may have tipped the scales.
But more seriously, Aberdeen, with their numb and exhausted bodies covering each and every corner of the Hampden field, may not have given an ounce more of themselves in the pursuit of a fantastic victory in the most surprising and confusing game.
Moments that looked like a marginal rejection of the last chances were frequent, but it is an eternal credit to Aberdeen that, in all three stages of the game, they simply refused to allow it to end.
It’s hard to believe where the Dons found the emotional and physical reserves to step into the box and make the game even bigger in the afternoon: Angus MacDonald is a case in point, less than ten minutes after collapsing to the ground, exhausted and in pain. . After some other heroic intervention in his own area, sneaking to the far post to consummate his redemption and that of his team in open play.
Any lamentation about what might have happened on Saturday, or any other day of the season if the tanks had been emptied with such enthusiasm and no doubt, would be absolutely drowned out by the applause of popularity of the effort and the spectacle offered.
This season, Mondays in which Dons enthusiasts faced the paints and school with an overwhelming sense of pride for their team were few and far between this season. There is no doubt that this situation, even if it results in a final defeat, is one of them.