Mowbray will not rule out Brown

MARTIN McMILLAN April 19 2006

Tony Mowbray last night refused to rule out a return for inspirational midfielder Scott Brown in this weekend's derby with Hearts. The 20-year-old has been sidelined with a broken leg since the 3-0 Scottish Cup win over Rangers on February 4 but returned to action in yesterday's 2-1 reserve-team victory over Dunfermline.

The Easter Road side have struggled in recent weeks without the presence of Brown, as well as other key figures such as Michael Stewart, Chris Killen and Gary Smith, and his return would lift spirits for the arrival of their Tynecastle foes.

Mowbray said: "The reserve match was like a training session for him. It was just to get his confidence going. He's had less than a week's training and has been out for about 10 weeks so we'll have to wait and see how he is when he comes back to training on Thursday."

Meanwhile, Chris Hogg, the Hibs defender, says he and his team-mates will be out to "make amends" on Saturday.

He added: "When you look back at the end of the season the 4-0 semi-final defeat will hurt. I've put it to the back of my mind and I'm just concentrating on the games ahead. If you hang on to the memory of it, it will just drag you down and drag your performances down.

"It's another chance on Saturday to put things right and get the three points. Any game you lose, the next time you play that team is a massive game because you don't want to be beaten by teams regularly, especially your rivals. You don't want back-to-back defeats from anyone in the SPL.

"But we've had hard games against Hearts this year and we've had poor results against them so Saturday will hopefully be another occasion where we come out on top.

"Every game against Hearts is a big game and with them doing so well this year it's a bigger game for us, to try to put one over on them and match them up on match day. If we can compete and match Hearts then we've got the quality to score goals and take the game to Hearts."

Tony Mowbray last night refused to rule out a return for inspirational midfielder Scott Brown in this weekend's derby with Hearts. The 20-year-old has been sidelined with a broken leg since the 3-0 Scottish Cup win over Rangers on February 4 but returned to action in yesterday's 2-1 reserve-team victory over Dunfermline.

The Easter Road side have struggled in recent weeks without the presence of Brown, as well as other key figures such as Michael Stewart, Chris Killen and Gary Smith, and his return would lift spirits for the arrival of their Tynecastle foes.

Mowbray said: "The reserve match was like a training session for him. It was just to get his confidence going. He's had less than a week's training and has been out for about 10 weeks so we'll have to wait and see how he is when he comes back to training on Thursday."

Meanwhile, Chris Hogg, the Hibs defender, says he and his team-mates will be out to "make amends" on Saturday.

He added: "When you look back at the end of the season the 4-0 semi-final defeat will hurt. I've put it to the back of my mind and I'm just concentrating on the games ahead. If you hang on to the memory of it, it will just drag you down and drag your performances down.

"It's another chance on Saturday to put things right and get the three points. Any game you lose, the next time you play that team is a massive game because you don't want to be beaten by teams regularly, especially your rivals. You don't want back-to-back defeats from anyone in the SPL.

"But we've had hard games against Hearts this year and we've had poor results against them so Saturday will hopefully be another occasion where we come out on top.

"Every game against Hearts is a big game and with them doing so well this year it's a bigger game for us, to try to put one over on them and match them up on match day. If we can compete and match Hearts then we've got the quality to score goals and take the game to Hearts."

Taken from the Herald