Hearts 2, Falkirk 1

By IAN PAUL

15 Jan 1996

Hearts 2, Falkirk 1

SOME players talk a good game, some play a good game, but rarely do the twain meet.

Hearts striker John Robertson manages it.

His record as a Tynecastle player will guarantee him a place in the Gorgie hall of fame, but he is also an articulate, intelligent observer of the state of the art.

Ask him how Hearts were able to move from bottom of the premier division to third top inside 11 weeks and he will use one word to secure your attention - ``Fear.'' The Scottish internationalist then expands to reveal a truth that senior players prefer not to let out the bag.

``The players here who are, let's say, mature, realise that they would lose their jobs if the team stayed down there and ended up getting relegated.

That is what did it.

``We have to be on our toes or the young guys coming through will knock us out of the team.

The manager has encouraged them to believe if they get in they can stay there and some have done it already.

The boy who washes your kit is also planning to take your place in the team.

When you are that age you believe you are better than the guy in the team.'' It may seem fanciful that the man who has become a scoring legend at Tynecastle should, at 31, be concerned about his place but maybe the fact that he has the foresight to spot the changing times is one reason why he remains a fixture in the top-team dressing room.

That and the knack, still retained, of popping the ball into the net.

Robbo, as he is known by all at Tynecastle, has spent virtually all his career, bar a short stint at Newcastle, with Hearts, but admits that the current side is playing the best football he has seen at the place for a long time.

``We are playing the kind of stuff you guys seem to like.

The manager has preached to us that we are a better side when we pass the ball about, but sometimes in the battles of the premier division you can't do it.

We are getting the rewards our football deserves.'' He pointed out that there are challengers, with youth on their side, for every position in the team in what is a big squad.

The changes made in the team have also helped and he would cite the arrival of king-sized keeper Gilles Rousset as a major influence.

``We were leaking goals early on and we brought in Pasquale Bruno and, more importantly, Gilles.

He has a big presence and we don't worry about crosses or shots.

We don't expect him to lose a goal.

Pasquale has settled well in that department, too.'' The conversion from 4-2-4, the preferred style of manager Jefferies, to three at the back has been a major factor, a conversion which was inescapable as the young men who came in, Paul Ritchie and Mark McManus, not to mention the old-timer Bruno, had been well schooled in that strategy.

The same applies to team captain Gary Locke, who is eligible for the under-21 squad but who Robertson feels could push himself into the full international reckoning by the time the European Championship finals come round.

He cites others, like striker John Paul Burns, who are waiting, as it were, in the wings.

Falkirk, on the other hand, could not match the depth of youth talent at Tynecastle, but they can compete in energy, commitment, and determination.

They also have some decent players but in the first half, other than solid defenders like John Clark, you would have been hard pushed to spot them.

Hearts were given the all-clear to attack from start to finish of the half and it was fortunate, indeed, for Falkirk that only one goal separated the teams at the break, the one scored by Robertson after a cross by Neil Pointon ``hit me on the shoulder.'' The striker tamed the ball and squeezed it over the line, despite a frantic attempt by Andy Gray to clear the ball off the line.

The Brockville side, lambasted by manager John Lambie, came out in far more positive mood and made a real game of it, equalising when that dangerous substitute, Steve Kirk, headed in after Scott McKenzie nodded the ball to him at the far post.

Hearts, sensing the three points they felt were their due slipping away, raised their game again and snatched the winner when Steve Fulton, after taking a short corner to Robertson and getting the ball back, deceived everyone - especially Tony Parks - with a curling left-foot effort that made its way dutifully to the top left-hand corner of the net.

He described it to Robertson as a cross-cum-shot which answers the main question: he didn't mean it.

That is not of any consequence.

``We'll take it even if he doesn't,'' said Robertson.

Right again.

His manager, naturally, wore a broad smile of satisfaction.

``It has been a good week for us, with three wins in eight days.

If we can keep our form and go into the last quarter chasing a European place it would be a big improvement for this club.

In the past two years we have been fighting relegation at that stage.

``We have changed the team a lot, but someone like Gary Mackay, who has been here a long time, has shown what that can do.

Maybe he felt the pressure when we bought Paul Smith but when he got in because of injury he has done a good job and if he keeps it up he knows he can keep his place.

That is the way it is here.'' Lambie was in his usual unambiguous form.

``We were atrocious in the first half,'' he said.

``We gave them far too much respect.

Their first goal was hand-ball, no doubt about it.

I don't think Steve Fulton meant the second, either, but we knew that they used short corners, yet did nothing about it.

We were having our best spell when they scored the winner.'' Meanwhile, the Hearts and Falkirk chairmen, Chris Robinson and George Fulston, have agreed to meet today to discuss the compensation dispute between them for the move of Jefferies to Tynecastle in the summer.