Reshuffled Hearts come up trumps

TYNECASTLE celebrated its 120th birthday on Saturday, but otherwise it was business as usual: a sell-out crowd, a couple of key players dropped, with one - the club's top scorer and a contender for player of the year in Scotland - rumoured to have walked out; oh, and a sublime performance and four-goal thrashing of Dunfermline Athletic that maintained their three-point lead, and improved their goal difference advantage to 12, over third-placed Rangers.

All pretty run ofthe mill stuff where Hearts are concerned. Rudi Skacel and Andy Webster were missing from the starting line-up, prompting a flurry of rumours that either, or both, could be on their way out, but as the match got under way, and Hearts clicked instantly and impressively into gear, their absence appeared almost irrelevant.

Valdas Ivanauskas, Hearts' acting head coach, claimed that there was nothing sinister in Skacel dropping out of the 18-man squad altogether. It was to ensure that he can deploy a "fresh Rudi" for the run-in, he suggested. But rumours persisted that the outstanding player of the first half of the season had walked out of Tynecastle upon learning that he would play no part in the match.

Afterwards, Hearts' minds were occupied less by squad disharmony and more by the prospect of the final day visit to Ibrox, with the Rangers-Hearts fixture confirmed on Saturday evening as the climax to the SPL on 7 May. The Hearts camp, with the exception of the non-committal Ivanauskas, appeared to be in a bullish frame of mind.

"If we play like this then I think second place is ours," stated Roman Bednar, the scorer of goal number two in Saturday's rout of Dunfermline. "If we are playing like this then I think there is no chance for Rangers," continued the striker.

On paper, it is arguably Rangers who should be more confident, having all but closed a gap that at one stage stretched to 16 points, yet the events of the last week, and Hearts' rediscovered form, have had a galvanising effect on the Edinburgh club. It is difficult to tell now which side has more momentum; and it all points to a final day that could be as thrilling, in its own way, as last season's title-deciding denouement.

Bednar was one of several players who turned in a lively performance on Saturday, and he was a contender for man of the match. "Unbelievable," said the Czech striker of his side's performance.

"We played like this in the first ten games of the season," he continued, before endorsing the contribution made by interim coach Ivanauskas. "We are together; everybody believes we can do it. It's not important who's playing, we have a big squad and can all play [a part]."

On the changes made by Ivanauskas for this match, he added: "I was surprised, yes, but this season there have been lots of changes. They're all fantastic players in the squad."

The mauling of Dunfermline underlined Hearts' credentials. While some players - notably Skacel - might have gone off the boil, others, like Paul Hartley, remain "on fire", to borrow Dunfermline manager Jim Leishman's description of his opponents.

It was an effervescent performance, from the first minute and an early goal looked inevitable. It came in the seventh minute when Robbie Neilson's long throw dropped for Michal Pospisil, lurking in the goal mouth, to prod past Allan McGregor.

Neilson was involved again in the second, seven minutes later, delivering a high cross into the box which Bednar managed to head home with his back to goal.

Neilson's assists column was bolstered further when his pass set up Saulius Mikoliunas to drive home the third from just outside the box.

As expected, the game entered an extended lull in the second half until the 82nd minute when a corner from the left by Bruno Aguiar was headed in by Juho Makela, who had replaced Pospisil, for the game's penultimate moment of drama.

The final act, which only further soured Dunfermline's afternoon, was a rash challenge by Greg Ross on Aguiar, which earned the young midfielder a straight red card.

Taken from the Scotsman