'Rangers showed character': Giovanni van Bronckhorst praises cup-winning players

Giovanni van Bronckhorst believes his Rangers side showed their strength of character to win the Scottish Cup just days after disappointment in Seville.

Goals from Ryan Jack and Scott Wright sealed a 2-0 extra-time victory over Hearts at Hampden and put Rangers’ name on the famous trophy.

Van Bronckhorst felt the triumph was more remarkable as it followed Wednesday’s penalty-kick defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League final, and a day after the funeral of Rangers kit man Jimmy Bell.

“We had character,” the Rangers manager said. “At difficult moments we stand up, rise up and go again.

“That is important for us as a club. When we have moments when we are down, we always have the support of our fans and always come back stronger.

“To end this week with a trophy is very good for us, very positive. It has been a very demanding week.

“We had the build-up to the final in very difficult circumstances. Mentally the loss was also big because we lost on penalties.

“We had to fly back, yesterday we said farewell to Jimmy, in the afternoon we trained and this afternoon we had a meeting about the game we wanted to play and the line-up.

“Again I told them it was the chance to win something. We have to look forward and move on and that’s what they did today.

“All the hard work in the last couple of weeks and months was rewarded today with a trophy.”