Late drama for Hearts 'faithful'

PAUL KIDDIE

THE Hearts supporters who started to drift towards the exits at Tynecastle with the Jambos trailing Dundee 2-0 with less than 20 minutes remaining clearly did not have as much faith in their team’s ability to turn things round as the players themselves.

Granted, the home side’s performance for most of the match had been unusually subdued as the Dark Blues looked comfortably set to take all three points back across the Forth Road Bridge to the City of Discovery.

With goals from Nacho Novo and Gavin Rae having put Jim Duffy’s outfit firmly in the driving seat on Saturday, the Gorgie faithful had understandably grown rather restless with nothing happening on the park for over an hour to suggest the hosts were capable of reducing that deficit.

However, Craig Levein’s team is nothing if not gallant and just when it appeared for all the world as if his players would slide to a surprising defeat, Steven Pressley & Co dug deep to rescue a point with two goals in the space of eight minutes and came close to even snatching what would have been the most unlikely of victories given what had gone before.

On first inspection a 2-2 draw at home against a team which had lost on seven of its previous eight visits to Tynecastle would normally be regarded by Levein as two vital league points dropped.

But not on this occasion.

And such was the rapid late swing in fortunes that the Hearts chief probably headed home after the match feeling as if he had actually won the game.

"It’s a crazy game," he said. "We didn’t start playing until 15 minutes into the second half. In an attacking sense we didn’t click at all in the first half and didn’t look like getting a goal.

"If you’d have asked me before the game if I’d have settled for 2-2, I’d have said ‘no’ as I wanted to win. But with half-an-hour to go I’d have bitten your arm off for a point!

"But these are the same guys who last season, under extremely difficult circumstances, scored a lot of late goals in a lot of games. It’s in them to do it and it was as if a switch was flicked and all of a sudden we looked like a team which is third best in the league playing with the urgency that is required to be third best."

A number of things could have been responsible for the flicking of that switch but Levein’s use of his substitutes was a hugely significant factor.

Jean-Louis Valois came on for Paul Hartley after 51 minutes and immediately provided a more natural balance on the left-hand side of the park, Graham Weir’s 61st-minute replacement of the largely ineffectual Dennis Wyness gave the Dundee defence a much different kind of headache while Stephen Simmons stepping off the bench for Neil MacFarlane after 69 minutes gave the midfield a more attacking look.

Suddenly Hearts looked a completely different proposition.

Novo had put the visitors ahead on the quarter-of-and-hour mark, just four minutes after Wyness had wasted a golden opportunity when he scooped Patrick Kisnorbo’s pass over the top from a good position.

Uncharacteristically, the opener was a disaster for the home defence. In front of the watching Scotland boss Berti Vogts, Andy Webster made a nonsense of a clearance on the edge of his box and Novo was onto it in a flash.

The little Spaniard still had plenty to do and Tepi Moilanen will be disappointed he didn’t do better as the striker’s shot found its way past his dive and into the back of the net.

Summer signing Wyness is still to convince the majority of Hearts fans that he is the natural strike partner for Mark de Vries and the punters were on his case again as the interval approached when Hartley picked him out beautifully in the area only for the front man to send his header over the top.

The boos which rang out from the stands when John Underhill brought the first 45 minutes to a close underlined the home support’s growing displeasure at what they had seen but Levein was at pains to stress afterwards that fans don’t do the team any favours when they are quick to get on the players’ backs.

"One of the things about Tynecastle is that the atmosphere is brilliant when things are going well and we are constantly telling the players to start well because if we don’t there is an element of the support here which is quick to criticise," he said. "The players are edgy and then the fans become edgy and it comes back to the players again. We looked like a very nervous team in the first half and guys who normally pass the ball very comfortably made some poor decisions.

"We had an effect on the crowd and consequently they had an effect on us."

Worse was to come for those disgruntled punters after the break when another defensive slip by Webster saw Rae clean through on Moilanen and the midfielder tucked the ball behind the Finn with the minimum of fuss with 64 minutes on the clock.

The writing now appeared to be on the wall for Levein’s men but as they proved so often last season, write them off at your peril.

The Jambos’ three second-half substitutes combined to half the deficit in the 73rd minute, Valois and Simmons setting up youngster Weir, whose first-time finish from inside the box belied his tender age.

With a whiff of something tangible suddenly in their nostrils, Hearts stormed towards Julian Speroni’s goal and Phil Stamp headed wide after good work from Simmons. Nine minutes from time, the comeback was complete.

Valois sent in a corner from the right after Speroni had needlessly conceded a flag kick and Pressley rose unchallenged to power home the equaliser.

With 60 seconds of stoppage time remaining, De Vries came within a whisker of snatching a dramatic winner when he just failed to make enough contact on Stamp’s long ball to deflect it past Speroni. And in a pulsating finale, Lee Wilkie almost did likewise at the other end, his header going inches wide of Moilanen’s right-hand post.

Once the dust had settled, it was the home manager who was understandably the happier man.

"Jim Duffy and his players deserve great credit for the way in which they set up but I think our players deserve as much, if not even more," said Levein.

"They deserve enormous credit and the spirit and determination they showed after being in their shells for so long fills me with pride. Everybody thought we were dead and buried apart from the players themselves."

A fact worth remembering, Hearts fans.

Taken from the Scotsman