Jefferies may rely on youth to pump new life into Hearts

JIM REYNOLDS

9 Oct 1995

Kilmarnock 3, Hearts 1

THERE are those of my generation who remember Hearts meeting Kilmarnock on the last day of a season in what was a championship decider.

Kilmarnock won that, too, but the only resemblance between the Tynecastle troops of 1965 and the ones who played at Rugby Park at the weekend was that they wore maroon shirts.

There is no doubt that Hearts are facing a crisis and that manager Jim Jefferies is facing a much bigger job than he perhaps thought when he uprooted himself from Falkirk in the summer and moved to the club he supported and played for.

Last midweek, after a home defeat by Aberdeen, Jefferies said: "Either the players can't take anything in, or they are just not good enough.

Their effort is fine, but the bottom line is maybe they don't have it."

He could have repeated that line at the end of the 90 minutes at Rugby Park, where Kilmarnock won their first league match of the season with a great deal of comfort after they had come from a goal behind.

It is true that young goalkeeper Gary O'Connor let the Ayrshire side back into the match when he made a dreadful blunder just before the interval, but the 21-year-old was certainly not to blame for what happened after that.

It is the more experienced players who are letting down Hearts at the moment, and Jefferies may be tempted to take encouragement from the showing of young left back Paul Ritchie and, to a certain extent, O'Connor to turn to the youth at Tynecastle to try to find a way out of trouble.

"Paul Ritchie was one of the plusses for me today," said Jefferies.

"And I'm not going to blame Gary O'Connor for us losing the points.

Okay, we were coasting, Kilmarnock were edgy, and we had no problems whatsoever.

The young lad had settled in well then he made an unfortunate mistake."

That came in 43 minutes when Hearts were riding on a wave of confidence after an Alan Lawrence header had put them in front.

Davie McPherson conceded a free kick out on the left and when Tom Black sent in a cross, O'Connor, under pressure from Neil Whitworth, dropped the ball right at the feet of Tom Brown, who lobbed it into the net.

Said Jefferies: "We had enough seasoned professionals in the side to recover from a blow like that, but what happened? They conceded another goal a couple of minutes later and from being one up, we came in at half-time a goal behind.

You have to look at the experienced men in front of the goalkeeper and ask questions."

It was Colin McKee who grabbed Kilmarnock's second, and the former Manchester United player added a third after 63 minutes to put the match beyond the reach of Hearts.

Kilmarnock certainly didn't look like giving anything away after that and there was no way back for Hearts.

Jefferies explained his reasons for fielding O'Connor in goal -- apart from his one mistake, the youngster made a very impressive debut and will do well -- when he said: "Craig Nelson hasn't done well since he took over from Henry Smith and we can't keep going back to Henry, who is now 39.

He has done a tremendous job for this club, but we have a young keeper who was farmed out to Berwick and did well there.

You can't wait until there are six games left to give him his chance.

"I know what the problems are at Hearts and the quick remedy would be to go into the transfer market, but we don't have the money for that, so we have got to do it within the club."

Hearts did, however, add to their staff at the weekend when they signed Oldham full back Neil Poynton for a nominal fee.

Kilmarnock will hope that Saturday's win will prove to be a springboard to better things after a bleak start to the season, and they did have a secret weapon in the shape of former Rangers manager Jock Wallace in their corner.

Jock flew from his home in Spain on Friday to give support to Killie manager Alex Totten.

Said Totten: "Jock was my old gaffer when I was at Ibrox and he gave me great encouragement before and after the match.

He told me I was a good manager and that I had to believe in myself.

I'm afraid I can't repeat the other things he said to me.

As you know, Jock calls a spade a shovel.

Maybe I should ask him to fly over every Friday."

Taken from the Herald