Rangers profit amid chaos

GLENN GIBBONS
AT TYNECASTLE

Hearts 1 Burchill (87)
Rangers 2 Novo (49), Ricksen (pen 90)

Referee: H Dallas. Attendance: 13,842

HEARTS, Rangers, referee Hugh Dallas and his linesman, Andy Davis, all conspired to produce a finish at Tynecastle last night that made the excesses of an Old Firm match appear about as wild as an afternoon tea-dance.

In the last minute of stoppage time, Rangers, on the advise of Davis to Dallas, were awarded the penalty kick from which Fernando Ricksen scored the winning goal, and Dado Prso, the Ibrox striker, and Saulius Mikoliunas, the Tynecastle winger, were both sent off.

The astonishing climax to a match that had been utterly engrossing - and seemed certain to cost Rangers two precious points - arrived, as these things do, with the suddenness of an unsuspected eruption. There was no warning rumbling as Dallas awarded Hearts a goal kick after Sotirios Kyrgiakos, in the visitors’ last attack of the match, glanced a header wide.

The Greek defender, however, was clearly inflamed, claiming that the challenge from home striker Lee Miller included a push in the back. Dallas appeared to be ignoring the pleading until he was directed to his linesman. As he moved towards consultation, Prso ran towards Craig Gordon and tried to punch the ball out of his hands. Having already been cautioned for persistent fouling, the striker was shown another yellow card, followed by the red.

Having shooed every protesting player from the vicinity, Dallas ended his short conference with Davis by pointing to the spot. At this, Mikoliunas lost the place, ran towards Davis and pushed him. His ordering-off was inevitable.

Alex McLeish’s post-match observation that the penalty had been "of the soft variety" would merely increase the flow of bleeding from Hearts’ wounds. Ricksen, showing admirable composure, converted by driving the ball powerfully to the right of Gordon. It was the kind of retrieval of a seemingly damaging situation that tends to indicate a championship-winning season.

This impression is underlined by the overall nature of a match from which Hearts deserved a draw. Having out-battled Rangers through the first half and squandered two excellent opportunities, the Tynecastle side showed genuine fortitude after coneding the goal to Novo early in the second.

When Burchill drove the loose ball past Ronald Waterreus after Paul Hartley’s free kick came back off a post, there would be virtually unanimous agreement that the proper result had been contrived.

Rangers’ recent run of solid performances and exceptional results appeared not to have impressed a Hearts side whose approach to a difficult assignment was utterly free of apprehension. Indeed, John Robertson’s players’ determination to impose themselves on the would-be champions - it could be described as controlled ferocity - was so effective that, if allied to a little luck, they could have contrived a two-goal lead by half-time.

That they did not could be attributed to a shocking 19th-minute miss by Deividas Cesnauskis - when he shot over the bar from ten-yards range after a dangerous cross from Mikoliunas - and an extraordinary piece of work by Waterreus in the visitors’ goal five minutes later. The ball rebounded to Mikoliunas after a Jamie McAllister free-kick and the Lithuanian looked Waterreus in the eye from the right side of the area, some ten yards out. The ball flew to the left of the goalkeeper, who shot out a hand to deflect it on to the post. In such circumstances, it is impossible to escape the growing suspicion that such profligacy against a member of the Old Firm will, eventually, prove expensive.

That was confirmed soon after the restart when Prso sent a precisely-judged pass into Novo’s path. The Spaniard beat Gordon to the chase and slid the ball into the keeper’s right-hand corner from 16 yards.

The Ibrox manager had expected something of a battle at a venue which has often caused his team problems and, in that respect, his expectations were met. It was, in terms of physical and mental commitment, unremitting from start to finish.

Hearts: Gordon; Neilson, Webster, Berra, Wallace; McFarlane, Hartley, McAllister; Cesnauskis, Miller, Mikoliunas. Subs: Moilanen, McKenna, Wyness, Simmons, Hamill, Kizys, Burchill.

Rangers: Waterreus; Ross, Kyrgiakos, Andrews, Ball; Ricksen, Ferguson, Vignal; Buffel; Novo, Prso. Subs: McGregor, Namouchi, Burke, Smith, Thompson, Malcolm, Rae.



Taken from the Scotsman