Spring JDBC throws java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.hibernate.Session.connection()Ljava/sql/Connection;

My problem is same as this one - java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.hibernate.SessionFactory.openSession()Lorg/hibernate/classic/Session

I get the following exception while using Spring JDBCTemplate.

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.hibernate.Session.connection()Ljava/sql/Connection;

The accepted answer in the link above, recommends downgrading Hibernate to a version supported by Spring.

This is not acceptable to me as I need the latest version of Hibernate to use its new features (and also benefit from bug fixes).

Is there a way to get it to work without downgrading hibernate?