Sky’s the limit for Bednar after gaffe

WITH TWO teams so prone to perhaps understandable errors and incompetences the wonder was that some freakish accident didn't decide the tie. A scoreless draw was the least likely outcome, although there were chances enough, muffed routinely, to settle a hatful of games. In the end the flu virus was the real victor.

Both sides were hobbled both by injuries and the bug which has laid low swathes of the country. Killie's James Fowler was affected but you would not have known it by the shift he put in. His team had to draft in the benchwarming midfielder Peter Leven as a makeshift striker, and even the club physio had succumbed in the morning before kick-off. Hearts had, as usual, made six changes - after seven midweek - but the surprise here was that five of them were occasioned either by injury or illness.

The fare improved after the break when both sides tired and the game opened up. With better final balls and more accurate striking it could have swung either way but, in truth, neither team deserved to win.
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The symptomatic incident came with 12 minutes of the game remaining when Paul Hartley chipped a glorious pass over Kilmarnock defender Gordon Greer and into the path of substitute Roman Bednar whose miss was so utterly inept from eight yards that he nearly downed an aircraft on the Prestwick flight path. Only a slight exaggeration.

Bednar was big enough to admit the error afterwards. "I just remember that I did well for the start, but my second touch was terrible," he said. He might also have scored with a neat header, on target, which the goalkeeper Graeme Smith somehow tipped wide.

The best move of the game came three minutes after the turnaround, beautifully constructed. Hartley was the creator, playing an astute one-two with Takis Fyssas, who bored into the box but clipped narrowly wide.

In a dismal first half the only real question had been which of the two pub teams was the worse. That reference, by Hibs' coach John Collins after the recent derby, produced a chuckle from Bednar when asked about it. "Of course I'm laughing. Since he said it was not a red card for Dean Shiels I must laugh."

After a brisk opening the ball had spent large parts of the half in the stratosphere and when it was on the grass some of the Hearts passing from the back was risible. Little wonder that Hartley, the one player in their side who threatened to unlock the stalemate, was forced to come further and further back to try to wrest a touch. He did send an early free-kick soaring over attack and defence and off a post but this was inadvertent.

Another couple of chances might have been converted on a better day. Killie defender Simon Ford blocked a close-in chance by Andrius Velicka after a fine cross by Saulius Mikoliunas, and the Lithuanian striker had another header parried by Graeme Smith, this time from Hartley's cross.

Bednar, who has spent a big part of the season in the treatment room rather than purdah, was not the only Hearts sinner. Christophe Berra perpetrated a horror on the six-yard line when his delayed shot was blocked with the goal yawning.

For Killie, Steven Naismith also had a couple of chances which he would have customarily converted, one popping up and off the bar after a cute through ball from Allan Johnston, which Craig Gordon clutched on the line. In injury time Gary Wales' shot beat Gordon but also the post.

If well-placed sources are right about the kind of wages being paid out to Hearts' British players then the goalkeeper is on a higher wage than all of the opposing Kilmarnock players put together. The coach, Valdas Ivanauskas, talked about bringing in "quality" players in the transfer window - they have quantity aplenty - but no-one would be surprised to see the highest earner put up for auction in the next 24 hours. Expect the unexpected at Tynecastle. That Churchill line about a mystery, inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma may have been about the Soviet Union but it certainly couldn't be more apt about a former military servant of that regime, the Hearts owner. Vladimir Romanov's motivations may even be a puzzle to himself, to the outsider they are downright bamboozling.

As he had told us, Romanov used to be a submariner for the Soviets where the object was to puncture an enemy below the waterline. This must surely be the first time a member of the silent service has repeatedly attempted to torpedo his own ship. Expect more salvoes in 2007.

Taken from the Sunday Herald