Hearts suffer the red card blues Confidence is being eroded

Ian Paul
Share

29 Nov 1999

Ian Paul BOTH teams badly needed a win before the game and, at the end, that was still the position.

Between times, there was a rare old confrontation, which Hearts should have won but Kilmarnock nearly won.

The problem for the Tynecastle team is that they are opting to play a large percentage of their games a man short, which is inclined to pass the advantage to the opposition.They have had a man sent off in their past three games and, hardly coincidentally, have lost a goal in injury time in all three.

One of these days they will finish with a full complement and woe betide the opposition when they do.

It might even be Killie tomorrow, when the sides meet again at Rugby Park in the CIS Insurance League Cup-tie.

The Tynecastle side, who were two goals ahead at half-time, and should have been four up soon after, are in danger of suffering a loss of confidence.

Indeed their international defender, Paul Ritchie, reckoned that had already happened.

''Confidence is as low as it can get,'' he said, but that was immediately after the game and, to be fair, every Hearts man would be in severe depression at that point.

Their manager, Jim Jefferies, has no doubts they will bounce back from this run of seven games without a win.

He dismisses the notion that this is a repeat of the dreadful slump which afflicted the side last season.

''It is nothing like that.

We were not playing well at all then, but we are playing well enough this time.

We should have had this game buried by half-time and we can't keep losing goals in injury time.'' As he and his peers know well, there is a very thin line between success and failure in the SPL, certainly among the teams outside the Old Firm.

Kilmarnock are second-bottom of the table, but with a wee break here and there might be third-top.

Their manager, Bobby Williamson, has refused to sink into the doldrums as his team try to get back into a winning vein, quite rightly, because the tide will turn if the form is maintained.

Even so, Paul Wright, who, as a second-half substitute, made his first appearance after an absence of 10 games, made a valid point when he said: ''The team have been making chances, just the kind that suit strikers like Ally McCoist and myself, and it is typical that we have both been out injured.'' It is true that the Ayrshire side are creating opportunities upon which natural scorers thrive and Wright may well have pinpointed the reason for the poor set of results that have been the club's lot.

Neither Jerome Vareille, Christophe Cocard, Ian Durrant, nor Michael Jeffrey is in the same predator mould as Wright and McCoist.

Still, there is not much wrong with the team's desire to please the fans who turn up on a regular basis.

There were few in the ground at the interval who gave them much chance of rescuing the situation as they tackled a two-goal deficit.

Their defence, recast because of injury to Gus MacPherson and Kevin McGowne, was posted absent for both goals.

Gary McSwegan had no-one near him when he tapped the ball over the line after Gary Naysmith sent over a low cross from the left.

The second, from a corner that caught keeper Colin Meldrum stranded as McSwegan headed the ball back into goal, was eagerly knocked in by Ritchie from close range.

Killie looked in serious trouble and if Hearts had taken the chances that came their way before, and soon after the interval, there would have been no way back for the home lot.

That still seemed to be the case for a while after the break, but midway in the second period Williamson, who had given his men a severe going-over at the break, decided to have a fresh try at changing the pattern, bringing on two substitutes, Alan Mahood and Wright for Durrant and Vareille.

It worked far better than the manager could have hoped.

Inside five minutes Mahood headed past Roddy McKenzie after a fine cross from Ally Mitchell.

Suddenly it was game on and Hearts knew they were in for a battle to stay ahead.

Unhappily for them, with 15 minutes left, they lost one of their key soldiers, Gary Locke, who, having been booked in the first half for a series of fouls, left referee Kenny Clark with no option but to show him a second yellow card and finally the red one.

With the crowd now urging them on, Kilmarnock sensed they could rescue the day and they did it in style, when Mark Reilly hit a scoring drive from 20 yards low into the corner of the net.

Mahood might even have snatched the winner in the last minute, but that would have been just too much for a Hearts lot who walked off bewildered at how it all happened.

''Killie never give up,'' was how Colin Cameron put it later, ''but that was hard to take.

We just have to work harder to get ourselves out of this.

Another injury-time goal and another man sent off ....

it is a bitter pill to swallow.

But we showed in the first half the football we can play and we will have to take that with us into the cup game on Tuesday.'' Wright, who does not reckon he will be able to tackle 90 minutes quite that soon after his lay-off, has not even watched the team during his absence.

''I can't bear to watch.

I just have to stay away.

But it was great to get a run and I will be trying to get match-fit as soon as I can.'' His team could use him, that is for sure.

Next league matches: Kilmarnock - Dundee (a).

Hearts - Dundee United (h).

Turning Point THAT was surely the miss by Gary McSwegan just before the interval.

With Hearts two goals in front, Gary, scorer of the first, had only Colin Meldrum to beat, but his finish was poor and the keeper blocked it.

There would have been no come-back for Killie had that gone in.

It didn't .

.

.

and Hearts lived to regret it.

Taken from the Herald