Pass masters taught us a lesson - Pressley

SATURDAY’S defeat by Rangers was a painful experience for the Hearts players who had gone into the Tynecastle encounter with hopes of taking at least a point from the clash.

However their aspirations were well and truly killed off by a tremendous second-half performance from Alex McLeish’s outfit.

The home side had Antti Niemi to thank for keeping the scoreline blank at half-time, the Finn producing a string of superb saves to frustrate the CIS Cup finalists.

However, the Finnish internationalist was left helpless after the break as goals from Ronald de Boer and Neil McCann underlined the Glasgow giants’ superiority.

The Jambos were left chasing shadows as the likes of Barry Ferguson and De Boer ran the show from the middle of the park as Hearts’ passing game deserted them.

Craig Levein later admitted his team was somewhat fortunate the margin of defeat was not greater and those sentiments were echoed by his captain Steven Pressley.

However, disappointed as the skipper was at the manner of the setback, the former Ibrox stopper insists the Gorgie side can only learn from their experience.

He said: "It was very much a lesson in how to play football. The first half went reasonably well for us without setting the heather on fire but full credit to Rangers for their second-half display.

"They competed for everything and were very comfortable in possession and we found it very tough going against them on Saturday.

"But there is no doubt in my mind that we can learn from that game and what happened in the second half. The disappointing thing was that the performances against the Old Firm this season had been pretty good.

"We had run them close on a few occasions, but at the weekend we were simply outclassed by a very good Rangers team."

Pressley was full of praise for Hearts’ man of the match Niemi, the Tynecastle No.1 again demonstrating why he is held in such high regard by those in Gorgie.

"I thought Antti was superb," added Pressley. "There was one occasion in the first half when he made three saves in the space of about 45 seconds.

"He is a top class keeper and sometimes we come to expect those sort of stops from him. Rangers certainly could have scored a few more had it not been for Antti.

"We went man for man at the back after going 2-0 behind and when Rangers broke they were able to exploit that."

The match marked the first on the relaid Tynecastle pitch, although both sets of players appeared to struggle to keep their feet on the greasy surface.

The club won the race against time to have the turf down ready for the televised clash, but now don’t have a home game until the visit of Dundee United on Saturday, March 9.

"The pitch was reasonably good," said Pressley, "although it was slightly heavy going.

"We don’t have game on it for a few weeks now so it will no doubt be in better condition by then."

Taken from the Scotsman