Not too many interim managers are asked to lead their team out in a national cup final but for Hibernian head coach David Gray, he had that task just three games into his first interim spell of four in charge of the Easter Road side. The opposition? Ange Postecoglou's Celtic side.

In a strange twist of fate, one of his first league games since being appointed head coach on a full-time basis is against Celtic, this time under Brendan Rodgers. Perhaps not the ideal game to follow a dismal three-goal defeat on the opening day but a challenge Gray is relishing nonetheless - just as he did the showpiece match nearly three years ago.

"It was a massive whirlwind. I'd had two games before it and was still dealing with the shock and adversity of the managerial change and then I was being told, 'You're taking the team in a cup final'," Gray recalls.

"I've thought about it a lot since. If we had won the cup, would that have changed anything? When I think back to where I was then and where I am now, I was nowhere near ready [for management]. It wasn't just that game that gave me the motivation and ambition to try and get to where I am now. I'd been thinking about it, which is why I retired when I did, to get into this side of the game. The opportunities that came about after that, a lot of the time through adversity, probably gave me more of that idea as to what I wanted to be in the end."

Whether as interim manager or head coach in his own right, Gray has overseen games against Postecoglou's Celtic and Unai Emery's Aston Villa, and will come up against Rodgers for the first time this weekend. Daunting for some, perhaps, but the 36-year-old is eager to gain as much as possible from these experiences and Sunday will be no different. 

"I managed in Europe against Aston Villa last year, with Unai Emery ten feet away. Some managers never experience that and I did at a very inexperienced stage in my managerial career. Hopefully, I can use that to the best of my ability to mould myself into how I think I should be," he says. 

"I'm always learning. To have the opportunity to test yourself against top coaches is fantastic, but to get the opportunity to see if you can beat them? That's the challenge that excites me. Celtic at home is a very different challenge to playing them away. You have to be prepared against the team that was the best last season and I fully expect them to be a massive force again this season. It's a challenge that should excite the players. It certainly excites me as a coach, as I try to prove myself."

Going back to Hampden, on December 19 2021. Hibs scored first, if you remember; Paul Hanlon just getting enough on a corner to force the ball over the line despite the best efforts of Joe Hart. Celtic equalised almost immediately, Kyogo Furuhashi finishing while the smoke from flares in the Hibs end still drifted over the pitch, before the same player scored the winner. But what if Hibs hadn't conceded straight away? 

"We'd worked a lot on set-pieces and scored from a set-piece. I was like, 'Oh, it works!' We had a game plan that was working at the time. We got ourselves in front which was great, but when I watch it back, it's always that 'what if?' moment," Gray admits.

And if things had gone the other way?

"I might just have retired there and then," he says, with a laugh.

"I'm a big believer that everything happens for a reason. It was my dad Peter who told me that when I was young, after my first major setback in football. I felt like my career was really kicking on when I was 15, 16, 17. Moving down south, going to Manchester United, making my debut, and then I did my cruciate out on loan. That was the first proper moment of adversity in my career," he explains. 

"Everything I've done, all the sacrifices, all the challenges I had in my career, led to that one moment I was very fortunate to have on May 21 2016. I was lucky to be in that position with the players I had around me and to be captain on that day. I firmly believe everything that's happening now, from the coaching side, all the opportunities I've had to get me to this point where I am right, is happening for a reason. I'm excited for the future."