Rotation policy that left us all in a spin

THERE is no doubt what the big talking point would have been among fans after yesterday's game. The selection of the Hearts team and subs bench surprised me, and from what he said later, it was clear that it also surprised Tony Mowbray and the Hibs players.

Although there were injuries to contend with, the official reason given for the more controversial aspects of the team that was fielded was squad rotation. Yet I wonder about the wisdom of leaving out some of the players that were omitted from the Hearts line-up. It's one thing to rotate the squad against sides that you're confident you can beat, but quite another to do it in a derby match at the home of your greatest rivals, especially when so much rests on coming second in the league. In a pressure cooker situation like that, having experienced players on the park is vital.

It was very surprising indeed to see an established international like Andy Webster in the stands, and almost as baffling to see top-scorer Rudi Skacel on the subs' bench. When you also choose not to play Edgar Jankauskis, who's been on fire recently, or the excellent Julien Brellier, or your captain Steven Pressley, then it can all go horribly wrong. And it did.

There are 42 games or so in a season, but there's invariably one which turns out to be a turning point when viewed with hindsight. With Rangers now having been thrown a lifeline ahead of today's Old Firm game, I wonder whether this game will prove to be that watershed match for Hearts.

As to who actually chose the team, I'm sure that there would have been discussions between Valdas and Vladimir Romanov, but am sure that Valdas would have had the final say. Yet to focus on issues surrounding Hearts' team selection would be churlish because the key thing about this derby was that the best team won. On the day, Hibs were better than Hearts, wanted the win more and deserved to collect all three points.

A lot of that was down to Mowbray. Once again, he was tactically superb, and although injuries to key players like Scott Brown and Kevin Thompson forced him to start with a dramatically weakened side, he made the most of his squad's strengths and exploited Hearts' weaknesses brilliantly.

Mowbray said that seeing some of the omissions from the visitors' side gave his players a real boost before the game, but I think it was Mowbray's motivational and mental powers which were the more significant factors. Without the flair of Guillame Beuzelin and the hard-running of Kevin Thompson, he still produced a midfield that was able to stifle the Hearts' midfield that was behind the last derby win. He did this partly by switching from the 4-4-2 he played in the semi-final to 4-3-3, but also, for example, by giving Oumar Konde the task of keeping Paul Hartley quiet. The fact that he did that so effectively - I thought this was one of Paul's quietest games for ages - was telling.

Mowbray also had a bit of luck in that David Murphy was definitely obscuring Craig Gordon's view for the first goal, which means he was in play and the goal should have been ruled out for offside. On such things seasons are made.

Yet Mowbray made a lot of his own luck, particularly with some inspired substitutions. He chased the game and took off Ivan Sproule and Fletcher, two players you'd expect him to keep on, and brought on Paul Dalglish and Abdessalam Benjelloun - one of them supplied the pass for the second goal, the other one scored it.

I also thought that several Hibs players really stepped up to the mark yesterday. Murphy was my Man of the Match, so it goes without saying that he was outstanding, but for me the player who typified Hibs was Jay Shields. He's only 5ft 6in, but he was tenacious, combative and very, very effective. It was his hard-but-fair tackle on Hartley which set up the first goal, and his performance set the tone for an afternoon in which Hibs dominated.

Taken from the Scotsman