It's De Vries lightning

Scorers: Hearts - Kirk (18mins), De Vries (40, 67, 89, 90; Hibs - Murray (50)

IT'S not how you start but how you finish, goes the old Vaudeville saying. At Fringe time in Edinburgh, it is a phrase used time and time again. It's also something that Mark De Vries of Hearts and BBC Scotland will do well to remember during the coming season.

Four goals by the Dutchman against Hibs in his home debut at Tynecastle yesterday was a godsend for the television company who were broadcasting their first live Sunday game. They should at least be offering to pay his TV licence fee as a token of their gratitude.

His performance was the highlight of a rip-roaring Edinburgh derby played in pouring rain with an atmosphere which was hopefully captured on camera.

Ratings should have been high as six goals in one match, and two in the last minute, should have been enough to sustain the interest of even the most neutral of fans.

However, there are only so many games which guarantee such entertainment on the SPL card. There will be non-events later in the year if either half of the Old Firm run away with the title. But from now on, those of us who turn up at matches will have to get used to the man in the yellow jacket from the BBC signalling to the referee it's OK to start the game, as happened yesterday. Clearly the SPL is now the BBC's baby and they are leaving nothing to chance.

The Beeb have paid, thanks to our licence fee, £16m over two years for 38 live games a season, and they will be hoping their investment is rewarded with such rumbustious fare as was served up at Tynecastle.

Once your grannie has come to terms with the fact they've brought Eastenders forward to accommodate the football, it could be a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Certainly Craig Levein would have been rushing home last night to make sure his wife had the video running. Even on second viewing he would have been delighted at the way his side played.

De Vries, who felt he was going to be substituted with 20 minutes left after he was struggling with cramp, will capture the headlines. However, the most refined player on the park and the one who caught the eye was Jean-Louis Valois playing on the the left-side of the Hearts midfield. Think of a thinner, and younger Stevie Fulton and you get the picture.

At the back they were solid as a rock, apart from when Grant Brebner's cross after 50 minutes was headed home by Ian Murray, who had become Hibs stand-in captain after John O'Neil went off with a shoulder injury after only 10 minutes. It would be ridiculous to suggest O'Neil's injury was a reason for Hibs defeat as Hearts were more creative in midfield and crucially defended better and much further up the park.

Indeed, the first Hearts goal was one which a team of schoolboys would be embarrassed to lose. A big punt from hand by Antti Niemi was missed by the Hibs central defenders, Mark Dempsie and Gary Smith, which left Andy Kirk with the simplest opportunity to nip in behind them to lob Tony Caig.

De Vries opened his account five minutes before half-time after being set up by a delightful lob by Valois for the best of his four goals. Although Murray got one back for Hibs, another goal by De Vries, this time in 67 minutes, merely showed the gulf in quality between the teams.

The fact he scored another two in the last two minutes was incidental as by that time, Hearts were running down the clock, confident in the knowledge they had three points secured.

Afterwards, both Levein and De Vries jokingly alluded to the fact that after scoring four goals in a televised Edinburgh derby, it was all downhill from there.

"It was a great feeling but don't expect me to do that every week," De Vries said. "For the last 20 minutes I had cramp and thought I was going to be substituted. It was maybe lucky for me everything came together."

The striker is a similar player to Ricardo Fuller, the former Hearts forward, who is now with Craig Brown at Preston North End, but the Dutchman has a bigger physical presence, a fact not lost on Levein.

"I realised how good a player Mark was but all he has done now is to show everybody else what kind of player he is," said the Hearts coach. "Scoring four goals in his home debut against Hibs is a dream for him. Nobody could have foreseen it. We suffered a 6-2 defeat against Hibs a few years back and the supporters have been hurting ever since. That 5-1 win was for them."

From a Hibs point of view, Bobby Williamson will have his work cut out to lift his team which now has lost their first two league games.

"We were all over the place out there and let everybody down," said the Hibs coach. "We defended badly and we have left ourselves with a lot of work to do before the next match against Rangers."

Unfortunately for the Hibs coach that game has been chosen by the BBC as their next live Sunday broadcast. He will be hoping when the cameras start to roll, his team don't freeze as they did at Tynecastle.

- Aug 12th

Taken from the Herald