Levein pleased as Hearts' tour ends with draw

GRAEME MCNEIL

CRAIG Levein declared himself happy with Hearts’ pre-season trip to Canada after his team dominated this draw with Millwall in front of an enthusiastic crowd in Vancouver in temperatures that crept above 90F.

"The trip has been great," Levein said after the game. "We have improved fitness wise, are unbeaten in three games and have made a lot of chances. We didn’t take them all, but these games give the strikers a chance to find their range."

"We’ve still got four or five games before the season starts. This trip was mainly for fitness - the shape and organisation will come in future games, but right now our fitness is as good as it could be at this stage."

"The players worked extremely hard in conditions that were difficult, to say the least. I don’t know what the temperature was, but it was as hot as I’ve been at a football game, but we were still pushing late in the second half."

The temperature clearly had an effect on both sets of players and the game was played at a sedate pace for long periods, although Hearts always looked the more likely to carve out goalscoring chances, despite the normally indefatigable Phil Stamp having to be withdrawn at half-time due to the effects of the heat.

Hearts had opened brightly against the FA Cup finalists and were dominating possession, yet managed to fall behind in the 25th minute.

Craig Gordon will find it hard to blame the tropical conditions for allowing a speculative lob from his former Scotland Under-21 colleague, Peter Sweeney, to slip through his hands and drop into the net behind him.

Gordon looked suitably mortified, but questions will also be raised as to how easily Sweeney broke the challenges of MacFarlane and Hartley in midfield to set up the shooting position.

To this point, Hearts had played some neat football without troubling goalkeeper Graham Stack, Millwall’s recent signing from Arsenal. In the 20th minute Hartley had set himself up after drifting past two challenges, but opted to pass instead of shoot and the chance was lost. Hearts were clearly stung by the goal and went straight into the attack.

Stamp cut in from the right and his miskicked shot turned out to be a neat pass towards Mark de Vries coming in at the back post.

The big Dutch striker was bundled over by Elliot and the penalty was duly awarded. Pressley converted with the minimum of fuss, sending Stack the wrong way less than two minutes after Sweeney’s opener.

That proved to be the end of the scoring, although De Vries had several chances as the game wore on, particularly in the second half when he was joined up front by the lively Dennis Wyness. Millwall had a strong penalty claim denied after Simmons upended Cogan in the 47th minute, but the Millwall player did seem to make the most of the contact and his theatrical fall may have negatively influenced the local referee.

Hearts can be pleased with their work on this short tour, particularly Canadian Kevin McKenna, who impressed both in attack and defence on his trip home and managed a hat-trick in the midweek game against admittedly weak opposition.

Levein will be only slightly disappointed that new signing Ramon Perreira was unable to make a greater contribution due to a knee injury.

The Hearts manger will hope that his men’s efforts in the North American sunshine will pay dividends in the hard slog of a Scottish winter.

That theory may be tested as he takes a team to Glebe Park to play Brechin City tomorrow night.

Hearts: Gordon; Maybury, Pressley (Webster, 79), McKenna, McAllister (Neilson, 74); Stamp (Hamill), Hartley, MacFarlane, Simmons (Jancyzk, 61); De Vries, Weir (Wyness).

Millwall: Stack (Marshall, 45); Elliott (Dunne, 45), Lawrence, Ward (Dolan, 45), Livermore (Ifill, 45); Cogan (Braniff, 72), Farrelly, Morris (Weston, 45), Sweeney; Harris, Dichio.

Referee: M Navarro (Can)

Taken from the Scotsman