Uproar as Rangers sneak win

The leaders were on the verge of spilling points until their captain kept his head while others were losing theirs in a stormy denouement that saw Dado Prso and Saulius Mikoliunas both sent off after the decision by Hugh Dallas, the referee, to punish Heart of Midlothian for a push by Lee Miller upon Sotirios Kyrgiakos.

Ironically, Dallas had missed an earlier incident in the other box, when Kyrgiakos cut down Andy Webster. After Prso and Mikoliunas were dismissed after a fracas, Ricksen sent Craig Gordon the wrong way to uncork real venom in Edinburgh.

A missile was thrown at Dallas from the Hearts supporters next to the tunnel as he walked off with a police escort. Just a few minutes earlier, the place had been in a ferment as Mark Burchill pounced on an error from Ronald Waterreus, who spilled Paul Hartley’s 87th-minute free kick.

The flurries of snow that engulfed Edinburgh before kick-off left a greasy coating on the pitch, which meant that timing was going to be crucial in what is always a torrid encounter.

This one quickly lived up to that pedigree with a frenetic opening that saw Webster’s free kick from the half-way line in the seventh minute controlled by Deveidas Cesnauskis and laid into the path of Christophe Berra. The teenager’s shot was blocked but it eventually fell to Robbie Neilson and his looping shot from the edge of the box was deflected narrowly over the bar.

However, the visitors quickly conjured up a counter-attack that saw Nacho Novo run 60 yards, leaving defenders in his wake. The forward was poised to pick out Ricksen at the far post until the back-tracking Cesnauskis appeared with a vital interception.

Novo, though, had competition as the contest’s principal threat. Mikoliunas has swiftly become a favourite of the Tynecastle crowd since arriving from Lithuania two months ago. His movement makes him so difficult to pin down as Marvin Andrews found out in the fifteenth minute when Mikoliunas cut inside and thrashed a rising shot just over the bar.

Back came Rangers. Thomas Buffel’s vision created an opening for Novo, after Paul Hartley’s intended intervention only saw him steer a weak header into the Spaniard’s path instead of Gordon. However, Novo squandered the chance, hoisting the ball high into the stand behind the Hearts goalkeeper.

John Robertson’s team responded to that escape by summoning up an impressive passage of pressure over the next ten minutes that saw them create three good chances. The zestful Mikoliunas was at the core of it all. He danced past Michael Ball with ease in the eighteenth minute, whipping in a low cross that Waterreus failed to deal with.

The Rangers goalkeeper stooped and pawed it messily into the path of Cesnauskis. A goal beckoned but the Lithuanian striker wasted his compatriot’s work by thrashing a right-foot shot over the bar from just ten yards.

Five minutes later, Hearts came even closer. McAllister’s angled free kick fell into the path of Mikoliunas whose venomous right-foot shot was touched on to the post by Waterreus.

However, when the goalkeeper spilt another delivery from McAllister, under pressure from Lee Miller, Hearts sensed the breakthrough was within their grasp.

The only time the pattern was interrupted was when Novo fired a raking shot just wide of the post. The remarkable thing was that this pulsating opening period failed to produce a goal, but it had been no less engrossing for that.

All that pressure though was undone when Rangers broke the deadlock five minutes into the second half. It was route one but it was effective, as Prso won the challenge with Berra when Andrews thumped the ball out of his own territory. The Croatia player then threaded a clever pass inside Lee Wallace that was weighted perfectly for the run of Novo.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk