Hearts 3 Motherwell 0: Hearts labour in front of Duffy

Celtic have won twice as many away games as Hearts in the Premierleague, 10 compared to five, but it is rare for them to fail at Tynecastle. Their home form alone could yet be enough for Champions League football next season, this victory maintaining their eight-point advantage over Rangers. “They’re a good physical side,” said Terry Butcher, the Motherwell manager, admiringly. “Watching them warm-up I thought we were facing the Harlem Globetrotters.”

Hearts have made coming out fast their trademark, though they were not quite up to speed in only the second minute when Richie Foran’s cross from the left saw Scott McDonald unmarked in the centre. It was a free header, but from a Motherwell perspective, the missing of it was to come at a cost. The Australian forward’s effort hit the inside of the post before rebounding off a strangely motionless Craig Gordon. It did, however, spark some movement from the goalkeeper’s colleagues.

A minute later and Rudi Skacel cut in from the left and while Colin Meldrum, in the Motherwell goal because of Graeme Smith’s groin injury, made a decent parry it only invited Edgaras Jankauskas to bang the rebound into an unguarded net. A rare instance of a Lithuanian in these parts damaging the opposition rather than his own club. “It just shows what a good player we’ve been missing,” said Graham Rix, the Hearts head coach.

Meldrum made an even better save from Skacel in the ninth minute when the Czech midfielder briefly switched to the right flank, but the play was only going one way. In the 13th minute, Motherwell were to be unlucky a second time. Deividas Cesnauskis crossed from the right, still an area of the team Hearts have to get completely right, and when the visitors could only half clear to the edge of the area, it was Jankauskas again, absent for the previous seven weeks with a hamstring injury, who blasted the loose ball into the top corner from 20 yards out. “We’ve gone from being potentially 1-0 up to 2-0 down,” bemoaned Butcher. “That sums up our luck: if it had fallen to one of our players on the edge of the area like that it would have hit the inside of both posts and come out again.”

A painfully modest Jankauskas described it as “maybe lucky”, but it was a brilliant finish and one that almost brought an end to the match’s momentum. Hearts, content with their cushion, sat back on what they had for a while. Motherwell found they had more of the play, but doing something with the possession was beyond them. Jim Hamilton sent a header over and in his frustration kicked out at Robbie Neilson moments later, marking his latest return to a former club, virtually a weekly occurrence for a striker who has played for so many, with a booking.

By the second-half this had become a match unsure what to do with itself. Skacel wasted a clear opening on the hour mark after being put clear by Jankauskas, but otherwise there was now a flatness to Hearts, without the suspended Hartley’s drive there was noone to give them a lift. Jim Duffy was doing his best, though. Duffy clearly sees director of football as a downstairs rather than upstairs role, in the dugout and gesticulating at the players like they were his own. In an attempt to improve matters, Rix — or was it Duffy? — opted to remove Jankauskas for Roman Bednar’s own return to fitness, though it was Motherwell who threatened next. Brian Kerr’s 71st-minute free-kick enabled Stephen Craigan to send a header that clipped the top of the bar.

It was enough to persuade Hearts they needed another goal and they broke out of their own half, and their own lethargy, to go three ahead. Takis Fyassas’s ball in from the left channel was touched on by Skacel and Calum Elliot lifted his shot deftly over the onrushing Meldrum with 12 minutes remaining. “One of the best 18-year-old strikers I’ve ever seen,” said Jankauskas, readier with praise for others than himself. Nominally Elliot’s goal was game over, but you could probably have said that at quarter past three.

STAR MAN: Andy Webster (Hearts)

Player ratings. Hearts: Gordon 6, Neilson 6, Pressley 6, Webster 8, Fyssas 8, Cesnauskis 5 (Johnson 82min, 6), Brellier 7 (Mikoliunas 86min, 5), Aguiar 6, Skacel 7, Jankauskas 7 (Bednar 69min, 6), Elliot 6

Motherwell: Meldrum 7, Corrigan 6, Craigan 5, McLean 6, Hammell 6, McBride 6 (O’Donnell 72min, 5), McCormack 4, Kerr 7, Foran 5, Hamilton 6 (Clarkson 85min, 6), McDonald 4 (McGarry 66min, 6)

Booked: Hamilton 34, Kerr 37, Cesnauskis 39, Foran 77

Referee: C Richmond

Attendance: 16,976

Taken from timesonline.co.uk