Hearts pass grit test in Hampden taster

BARRY ANDERSON
AT HAMPDEN

Queen's Park 0

Hearts 2

HEARTS would expect their next visit to the National Stadium to be notably more auspicious than this one.

A CIS Cup second-round tie with Billy Stark's Queen's Park was always likely to transpire as the more low-key of George Burley's early assignments as manager, and so it proved.

Within any club with the elevated ambitions that Hearts harbour, Hampden is considered as a venue to provide the platform for silverware-kissing laps of honour and team bouncies amongst the ticker tape. In short, the kind of celebrations which immediately follow cup final victories.

The Tynecastle hierarchy clearly intend on being regulars at the big parties on Glasgow's south side with Burley at the helm, but to reach the glitz you must first negotiate the grit that tricky early-round draws can produce.

The sombre nature of the occasion last night did not prompt Burley to deviate from an approach which has been thorough in its professionalism since he first crossed the Tynecastle threshold, and consequently Hearts moved into the third round at the expense of Stark's part-timers.

It would be easy to digest only the result and concoct a notion in the mind of, 'My God, they can even field a shadow team and still win comfortably without conceding', but to do so would do the talent possessed by Queen's Park a massive injustice.

It would also gloss over a visiting performance which Burley willingly admitted afterwards was not up to standard.

In particular, he seemed bemused by the ineffectual Lithuanian David Cesnauskis in the wide-right beat, constantly emerging on the touchline to conduct inquests into the player's apparent inability to retain possession or offer an outlet to his midfield with any timely movement going forward.

Cesnauskis was frequently dispossessed during the match but, despite quite obviously exasperating his arm-waving manager at times, he was nonetheless afforded a full 90-minute outing as Burley sought to maximise the opportunity to assess some of his squad's more peripheral figures.

Gary Tierney, Christophe Berra, Lee Wallace, Stephen Simmons and Neil MacFarlane were all in the starting line-up alongside Cesnauskis.

Jamie McAllister returned after his demotion due to Takis Fyssas' arrival, and Michal Pospisil began his first match for the club in an attempt to hone his fitness after hamstring trouble.

Almost 1500 visiting fans were contained in the 2429 crowd, and most were doubtless expecting a deluge of goals with expectation levels soaring amongst Hearts followers at the moment.

In the end they were permitted only two, but seeing both come from Edgar Jankauskas will have ensured that they returned east contented.

The giant Lithuanian's lack of match sharpness had, until last night, masked his true potency in a Hearts shirt but his swift reaction to knock home his first goal in maroon when Queen's Park goalkeeper David Crawford parried Stephen Simmons' shot evinced his ever-improving physical and mental condition.

That strike arrived on 15 minutes and Jankauskas could have had a hat-trick inside the next five as he first saw a header cleared off the line by Ross Clark and then a left-foot shot loop over the crossbar after a fine dribbling run into the penalty area.

The second arrived a minute before half-time, although in somewhat fortuitous fashion, as Richard Sinclair kicked thin air attempting to clear a McAllister cross, allowing the alert Jankauskas to pounce once more.

It was a nerve-calming strike in the context of what had taken place just seconds previously.

Andy McGinty had forced Craig Gordon into an instinctive save to tip over his header from the veteran Paul Harvey's free-kick and, from the subsequent corner, the ball broke to John Weir only for him to spin and lift the ball around a foot over the crossbar.

The second 45 minutes passed minus any real moment of note conjured by the players, but there was one opportunity for an unrivalled nostalgia trip nine minutes from time.

As Queen's Park prepared to replace the tired legs of Weir with Jonny Whelan, their kit man emerged on the touchline not with the electronic substitute screens that are the norm these days, but with the wooden number boards of yesteryear. He even battered them strenuously together to attract the attention of referee Eddie Smith. Classic.

After a second half which had seen the home side press Hearts back far more than in the first, with Harvey dictating much of the play from a withdrawn attacking role and Mark Ferry looking threatening wide on the left, Hearts looked slightly relieved as they trudged off the hallowed Hampden turf at the end.

Stephen Simmons' display was the biggest positive for Burely, but it was countered by two negatives.

An injury to MacFarlane and an apparent recurrence of Pospisil's hamstring problem were exactly the types of consequences that Burley had hoped to avoid, particularly in view of the striker's outstanding contribution as a substitute against Aberdeen last Saturday.

But such is life when you're a high-flying SPL manager. If the eventual destination for Hearts after a pacifying evening like last night turns out to be a return to Hampden to play it out for the trophy, I'm sure Burley could just about cope.

Queen's Park (4-4-2): Crawford; Clark, McGinty, Sinclair, Molloy; Kettlewell, Quinn, Weir (Whelan 81), Ferry; Bowers (Weatherston 73), Harvey (Reilly 88). Subs not used: Felvus, Cowie.

Hearts (4-4-2): Gordon; Tierney, Webster, Berra, Wallace; Cesnauskis, MacFarlane (Hartley 39), Simmons, McAllister; Pospisil (Elliot 23), Jankauskas (Mikoliunas 73). Subs not used: Pressley, Banks.

Attendance: 2429

Taken from the Scotsman