Sweet revenge for Hibs

HIBS 1-0 HEARTS

STUART BATHGATE AT EASTER ROAD

IT HAD to happen. If and when Hibs were going to win an Edinburgh derby, they were surely fated to do so with a late goal, and so it turned out yesterday as Garry O’Connor’s winner came a minute into time added on.

Having conceded last-gasp goals in each of the three derbies last season, Hibs were well aware of the need to compete until the end. The sending-off of Grant Brebner nine minutes before half-time only gave them an extra incentive, as they out-fought a Hearts side who enjoyed the bulk of second-half possession without being quite sure how to make it count.

The visiting side did have one reasonable chance to secure the draw, when Steven Pressley got his head to a rebound from a Stephen Boyack shot. The Hearts captain’s effort was wide, however, ensuring there would be no fairytale to emulate that in the New Year game at Tynecastle, when his team came from two goals down in inury-time to snatch a point.

That 4-4 match had been a moral victory for Hearts, but even if this game had ended goalless it would have been seen as a point won by the home side, two points dropped by the team with the extra man. Having won here in the pre-season Festival Cup two weeks ago by having greater composure and shape, Hearts perhaps believed the same formula would be enough to grant them another victory. If so, they reckoned without the grit of opponents who were determined to give their supporters more to cheer about than they had managed then.

The result takes Hibs to the dizzy heights of joint top of the Scottish Premierleague, the only side other than Rangers with maximum points from their opening two games. It is still a bit early in the season to classify their visit to Ibrox on Saturday as a full-blooded top-of-the-table clash, but even their involvement in such situations will help their confidence.

And so, needless to say, will this victory. Failure to win at Tynecastle back in January sent Hibs into the winter break with their tails between their legs, and in the second half of the season they slid out of the top six. Now they can, for the moment at least, regard themselves as a spirited and improving team.

The spirit was nowhere more in evidence than in Scott Brown. The 18-year-old began the match in his usual position up front, but was just as comfortable when moved back into midfield to compensate for the absence of Brebner.

Yannick Zambernardi, officially the man of the match, provided some telling passes, especially in the first half, and Stephen Dobbie also made a telling contribution after coming on for Tam McManus - most tellingly of all when, after Scott Severin was dispossessed, he supplied the through ball from which O’Connor drove a low shot underneath Tepi Moilanen in the Hearts goal.

For all their thoughtful approach work, Hearts simply lacked anything quite so incisive as that strike. They dragged the Hibs defence from side to side of the park easily and often enough, but were rarely able to force Daniel Andersson into making a save.

Mark de Vries - named in an unchanged line-up after doubts about his fitness - was unable to induce any sense of panic in the Hibs defence. Dennis Wyness, while more active than in the 2-0 win over Aberdeen, only occasionally got the better of his marker. And Kevin McKenna and Andy Kirk, substitutes for those two strikers as they had been eight days earlier, were just as unable to make an impact.

To be fair, Hibs did not have too many clear-cut openings either, their best effort besides the goal having been a first-half shot from Jarkko Wiss which glanced off a post. Indeed, but for the O’Connor strike the match would have been remembered mainly for the rash of yellow cards produced by referee Stuart Dougal.

The first booking, for a handball from Matthias Doumbe, came in the fourth minute. The next, for a minimal infringement by Severin, came two minutes later. And so it went on.

Such actions are meant to be early warning signs, indications that the referee will brook no nonsense. But they can also be inflammatory, making the players and fans feel aggrieved, and thus adding to an already frenzied atmosphere.

Certainly, those first two yellow cards, followed by two more for Alen Orman and Andy Webster, did nothing to soothe the troubled brow of Brebner. The Hibs midfielder might feel his red card for a trip on Robert Sloan was too severe, but equally, having seen how the match was being refereed, he might have erred on the side of caution and allowed the Hearts player to proceed up the wing.

There was still time in the first half for McManus to be added to the book, and in the second period, just to show they had learned nothing as they watched from the sidelines, Boyack and O’Connor were also cautioned.

Boyack had been introduced for Sloan at the interval, with Paul Hartley switching from wide right to wide left, and for a while Hearts piled on the pressure. Eight minutes into the second half Phil Stamp got in a shot which, while wide, at least suggested that his side were beginning to turn the screw.

Five minutes later Andersson tipped a shot from Severin round the post, and then, as Hearts continued to press, Wyness headed over from a Hartley corner. But the longer the match went on without a goal from Hearts, the more Hibs’ self-belief grew. From being embattled, they became the team doing the harrying, with O’Connor being foremost among those willing to chase lost causes.

Hearts at no time looked like they had settled for a draw, and with six minutes of regulation time remaining McKenna headed over from a corner. That chance enthused their supporters, hopeful that the deadlock would be broken at the death, but Craig Levein’s side failed to create another opportunity.

When the immediate disappointment is dispelled, the Hearts manager will be able to remind his team that they are capable of far better than this. And, notwithstanding this result, recent evidence suggests that over the season they will prove stronger than Hibs.

But how the league ends up will be of little concern at present to Bobby Williamson. Having won a derby at last, the Hibs manager will content himself with the knowledge that, after the traumas of last season, the balance of power in Edinburgh football has tilted ever so slightly towards Leith.

Hibernian: Andersson, Orman, Doumbe, Smith, Zambernardi, McManus (Dobbie 64), Brebner, Wiss (Glass 85), Murray, Brown, Riordan (O’Connor 60). Subs not used: Hyldgaard, Whittaker.

Hearts: Moilanen, Maybury, Pressley, Webster, McCann, Hartley, Stamp, Severin, Sloan (Boyack 45), De Vries (McKenna 68), Wyness (Kirk 76). Subs not used: Gordon, MacFarlane.

Taken from the Scotsman