Hibs turn tables on Hearts

Hearts, rampant against Hibernian in the Scottish Cup semi-finals three weeks ago, had their Champions League aspirations dented when they lost the last Edinburgh derby of the season 2-1 at Easter Road.

Though Hearts are second in the Scottish Premier League, still five points ahead of Rangers, the Ibrox side can close the gap if they beat Celtic in today's lunchtime Old Firm collision at Parkhead.

There was never any question that Hibs would be swept aside as they had been at Hampden Park, but there had been no appreciable goalmouth action before they took the lead on the quarter-hour.

Jay Shields halted a Hearts thrust with a forceful interception in midfield to turn the ball wide to Ivan Sproule. The Northern Irishman turned his cross to the back of the six-yard box, where Derek Riordan took an awkward touch but recovered with a fiery low shot beyond Craig Gordon.

Hearts, angered because Steven Fletcher had been offside along the line of the shot - and had even tried to touch it on into the net - but was not considered to have interfered with the play.

Their resentment increased when Calum Elliot was flagged offside as he made for the rebound from Zbigniew Malkowski's parry of a fine Saulius Mikoliunas effort, but the goalkeeper made them a present of the equaliser with the last action of first-half added time. Roman Bednar, chasing a through ball against Gary Caldwell, went to ground and was as astonished as everyone else in the stadium when Malkowski inexplicably spilled the ball in his direction.

Bednar was on his feet and the ball in the back of the net in a split second. Buoyed by this turn of events, Hearts controlled the bulk of the second half until they dozed off at a throw-in which Paul Dalglish turned into the path of his fellow sub, Abedessalam Benjelloun, for the Moroccan to sweep low past Gordon.

Taken from telegraph.co.uk