Kean breaks Hearts to take St Mirren top

James Stirling
Sunday September 10, 2006
The Observer

Stewart Kean's late winner at Tynecastle stunned Hearts and allowed promoted St Mirren to draw level on points with their wealthy rivals. The 1-0 away win left Celtic clear at the top and saw Hearts slip down to third in the table.

Visiting keeper Tony Bullock produced a string of outstanding saves to deny Hearts, who also had several penalty appeals turned down. Saints had their moments throughout the game, but had been under the cosh - as so often - immediately before Kean scrambled home an 82nd-minute winner.

Bullock produced top-class saves early on from Saulius Mikoliunas and a Steven Pressley header and Hearts were outraged when Mikoliunas appeared to be brought down by two defenders on the edge of the Saints box, but the Lithuanian was shown a yellow card by referee Dougie McDonald.

A combination of Mr McDonald and Bullock kept Hearts at bay for the rest of the afternoon, till late on when John Sutton released Craig Molloy down the right and his low strike across goal was only palmed out by Craig Gordon to Kean, who found the roof of the net.

Taken from the Guardian/Observer