Hearts delight Levein in race for third place

STUART BATHGATE AT TYNECASTLE

Hearts 3 Maybury (50), De Vries (53), McKenna (79)
Kilmarnock 0

Referee: C Thomson. Attendance: 10,426

HEARTS have enjoyed more dramatic victories this season - and more dramatic draws - but surely none has been anything like as complete as this.

Patient throughout a goalless first half, lethal in the opening spell of the second and imperious once they had killed the game off: on this form at least, they are by some margin the third-best team in the country.

The margin which counts, of course, is the seven-point gap which separates them from fourth-placed Kilmarnock. That is by no means unbridgeable - and, with a visit to Ibrox coming up for the Edinburgh club, it may well have shrunk by next week. But, after the disappointing CIS Cup defeat by Rangers, Hearts again showed here that they have the character to bounce back.

There is no one big, glaring explanation for the success of Craig Levein’s team - other than the astuteness of the coach himself. Individual purchases have certainly been shrewd, but the overall effect has been achieved by assiduous fine-tuning.

Signings such as Phil Stamp have grabbed the attention - and rightly so, given displays such as Saturday’s by the Englishman - but other contributions have been just as important. While Stamp has the voracity, if not quite the girth, of Henry VIII, players such as Neil MacFarlane tend to nibble away in the background, eschewing the spectacular but achieving results nonetheless.

It has, in fact, been some season for MacFarlane, who came to Hearts while still recovering from a career-threatening cruciate injury. He has made the holding role in midfield his own, persuading Levein to move Stamp out to the right, and the vote of confidence seems to have helped him to grow in stature.

Not that his opinion of himself has been unduly inflated. MacFarlane, who numbers Kilmarnock among his former clubs, simply saw the game as a job well done.

"We worked really hard in the first half, even though it was 0-0," he said. "Then we came out in the second half, got the breakthrough, and just took it on from there.

"Hopefully we can all go on from here and achieve something this season, but we know we have to keep trying to improve if we want to finish third."

Levein’s assessment is similar. He knows there is still some way to go before Hearts can call third place their own; and, looking to the longer term, he is aware that one such isolated achievement has to be regarded as a staging post rather than the final destination. If Hearts can keep this side together, and continue to bring some of their youth team through carefully, they can only keep getting better. Proof of the promise lower down the club is shown by the fact that the under-18s and under-21s lie third and fourth respectively in their leagues, and in the months to come some of the players in both those sides will press more strongly for regular first-team recognition.

"That’s as good an all-round performance since I came here," Levein said. "We’ve never dominated a game as much as we did today. The first half was a battle, but if our final ball into the box had been better we might have been comfortably in front after 20 minutes."

Indeed, they might have been ahead after just a couple of minutes, when Andy Webster headed over the bar. Kilmarnock were competitive for a while, though, and had the most clear-cut chance of the half when Kris Boyd shot just past after a sudden break put him through on Tepi Moilanen.

In the second period, having failed to deliver killer crosses from wide positions, Hearts, in the person of Alan Maybury, opted for the more direct approach. The full-back’s goal against Partick Thistle in December had been the first he could remember scoring, and it has clearly given him a taste for getting on the scoresheet.

There seemed little danger when Maybury gathered a clearance some 30 yards out, and perhaps there would have been little danger had Kilmarnock closed him down. Instead, they allowed him to gather momentum then release a low drive which Colin Meldrum found unstoppable.

A couple of minutes later, Greg Shields, who had already been booked for dissent, was shown a second yellow after tripping Stamp . Down to ten men, Kilmarnock were soon 2-0 down: Meldrum failed to gather a high, drifting ball from Stamp, and De Vries took the ball, turned and slotted home.

A dozen minutes from time Kevin McKenna, on for the Dutchman, scored a simple third, and Hearts played out the game as an exhibition match.

For the second week running, they had outplayed their nearest challengers and won by three clear goals.

Jim Jefferies sought no consolation from what had simply been an off-day for his previously on-form side.

"In the second half the whole game changed when Hearts scored," the Kilmarnock manager said. "Hearts were more competitive than us, so we’ve got no complaints."

Nor had the home supporters as they trooped out, happy as Larry, and hearty as Harry.

Taken from the Scotsman