Well's two-do breaks Hearts

ANDREW SMITH
AT FIR PARK

MOTHERWELL 2 McDonald 25, Fitzpatrick 39
HEARTS 0

THEY gave a few muffled cries of it when their team made it 2-0 but it was no surprise they roused themselves to reprise the chant in more full-blooded fashion at the full-time whistle. Never has the chorus ‘Can we play you every week’ been more apt than when Motherwell supporters launched this in the direction of a hacked-off Hearts support at Fir Park yesterday.

Played four, won four reads the record of Terry Butcher’s men against the Tynecastle club. This means that just under a third of the Lanarkshire club’s victories across the entire season have come when they have been sharing a pitch with the Gorgie side. A team who seem to have the same reaction to claret and amber as a vampire does to garlic.

Having excelled in thumping Kilmarnock 3-0 in a Scottish Cup fourth round replay in midweek Hearts were truly execrable at Fir Park. And Lithuanians Saulius Mikololiunas and Deividas Cesnauskis, having be enthused over for their Rugby Park exploits, were entirely anonymous. Unlike John Robertson, who rather masochistically offered mea culpa in a damning assessment.

"That is the high and lows of football," the Hearts manager said. "We were magnificent in midweek and here we didn’t perform. Motherwell were the better team from start to finish. It was an embarrassing performance. I take full responsibility. I pick the team and choose the tactics and I apologise to the Hearts supporters."

No-one more than Marc Fitzpatrick will wish he could play against Hearts every week. Line clearing at its worst by the visitors backline in the 39th minute allowed him to latch on to a loose ball in the box, ride a couple of tackles before driving a low shot beyond Craig Gordon.

A finish of utter conviction that brought Motherwell a decisive second goal, it earned the 19-year-old a second goal of his senior career. After he opened this account against a certain team from Tynecastle to send the CIS Cup semi-final his side’s way.

Yesterday’s encounter shifted Motherwell’s way once they had broke the deadlock in the 25th minute. A lacerating run from Steven Hammell down the left was followed by a thumping drive that Gordon blocked with his legs before Scott McDonald slammed the rebound low into the net.

It was a goal that would have prompted relief from Jim Hamilton who knocked a penalty straight at Gordon with no more power than a passback after Lee Wallace had committed a clumsy challenge on McDonald to bring about the award in the 12th minute.

"A lot of people were saying that this was sure to be Hearts day after we have beaten them three times but I said to the lads to make sure it was our day," Butcher said afterwards. "I’m absolutely thrilled. I said to the boys at half-time we were 2-0 up because of two words: work rate."

Teams meeting each other going in opposite directions was the pre-match summation of yesterday’s match-up. But the world of these two side seems to turn upside down when they meet. Motherwell were without a league victory in their past seven games, a run stretching back to early December. Their only win during that period came with the extra-time success over Hearts in the semi-final of the CIS Cup.

This, meanwhile, was the only defeat suffered by Robertson’s men since way back on Boxing Day. And, it just so happened, it was the third time this season that the Tynecastle club had been undone by the Lanarkshire club.

Maybe it was just a little too neat a coincidence that it all seemed to be coming together for them at long last. With Vladimir Romanov in firm charge, the enquiries directed towards Robertson in recent days have moved on to the club making good on the Kaunas connection on the playing field. Deals to keep Mikololiunas and Cesnaukis at Hearts beyond the end of the season had become one of Scottish footballer’s talkers.

Little wonder, after the duo built on favourable early impressions by leading Kilmarnock a merry dance to underpin a 3-0 triumph away to Kilmarnock in their Scottish Cup fourth round replay on Wednesday.

That Hearts didn’t turn up yesterday. As for the tentative Motherwell team who had squandered early pressure to draw with Hibernian on Tuesday, they were nowhere to be seen either. Okay, so for the opening five minutes, and when Robertson’s side rallied midway through the second period, the two sides performed in keeping with their respective league positions.

Otherwise, however, the visitors’ didn’t look like a side trying to chase down their capital rivals Hibernian for third place of the SPL. Motherwell, meanwhile, did enough to leave you bemused as to why they haven’t even be able to rustle up any sort of league win in two months.

Taken from the Scotsman