Love Street cheat breaks St Mirren's heart

The fall and rise of Heart of Midlothian continues. Michael Stewart helped his side to climb into the top six of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League for the first time this season but it was the midfield player’s penchant for going down that saw him labelled a cheat at Love Street yesterday.

David Van Zanten, the St Mirren defender, accused Stewart of diving to earn the 56th-minute penalty that proved pivotal in this encounter. The Hearts midfield player got up, ignored the torrent of abuse from angry opponents and displayed composure to put his team 2-0 ahead, but after a frenetic fightback by the hosts failed to rescue a point, Van Zanten did not miss Stewart later. “It was not a penalty,” the St Mirren right-back said. “It was not even shoulder-to-shoulder. He threw himself to the ground and conned the referee.”

St Mirren’s sense of injustice was compounded by the fact that John Underhill, the capricious referee, ignored a more obvious claim by Stephen O’Donnell in the first half. Stewart insisted later that he was innocent. “I did not deliberately try to fall down,” he said. “I tried to cut across him and our legs got tangled.”

Stewart’s penalty was sandwiched in between fine finishes from Andrew Driver and Andrius Velicka, while Marc Corcoran came off the bench and offered hope to St Mirren with a header that narrowed the gap to 2-1 with 12 minutes left. Their manager, Gus MacPherson, preferred to walk the cautious line of someone who had been fined last season by the SFA for criticising referees. “I cannot say anything but the disappointment for me is that only one team had a player booked for diving and it was us.”

His counterpart, Stephen Frail, felt relief at maintaining a sequence that has brought five wins in six league games since losing 5-0 at Celtic. “We never beat St Mirren at all last season,” the assistant head coach said. “If we had only shut up shop last week at Inverness, we might be looking at six wins out of six. I think we can build on this. I said after we defeated Rangers that we had not turned the corner. The Old Firm are at the top of the table because they turn in those performances week in, week out.”

The most notable change for Hearts, for once, had nothing to do with rotation. Anthony Basso was given his debut in goal because Steve Banks succumbed to food poisoning shortly before kick-off. Basso was not tested in the first half but Hearts had to absorb plenty of pressure.

Chris Birchall was the most prominent threat with a series of skilful runs down the right ending with low crosses, one of which was frantically cleared away by Robbie Neilson and the other which O’Donnell just failed to reach. Franco Miranda delivered an equally dangerous free kick from the opposite flank in the 25th minute that was met by Will Haining whose powerful header was just over the bar.

Six minutes later, the hosts were consumed by anger when O’Donnell was denied a penalty. The midfield player got in front of Eggert Jonsson, who tugged him back as he advanced into the box. The referee refused to listen to the appeal but had the offence taken place anywhere else on the pitch, he would surely have awarded a foul.

Just to compound the felony, Hearts then took the lead in the 40th minute against the run of play. Stewart’s corner was flicked on by Audrius Ksanavicius and landed at the feet of Driver lurking at the back of the box. The Hearts player showed fine control before thrashing a raking left-foot shot through a ruck of players as it flew past Chris Smith, the goalkeeper, for his third goal of the campaign.

St Mirren continued their protests to Underhill on the way to the tunnel at half-time and their attempts to redress the situation in the second half saw Burchill’s netbound header kept out by José Goncalves before Basso’s eccentricity saw him miss Miranda’s free kick as he tried to claim it.

Hearts then opened up the hosts with a counter attack that saw Driver combine skill and pace to race clear and go round Smith but the angle was too tight and Miranda and Smith managed to prevent Driver plundering his second goal. The delay for Hearts, though, was brief.

Smith’s throwout was picked off by Stewart who burst into the box as Van Zanten came across and went down, almost on the same piece of turf on which O’Donnell had fallen earlier. Underhill had no doubts, immediately pointing to the spot. Such conviction from the referee left the obvious question: if he could award one soft penalty, why did he not give the other? Stewart was in no mood to dispense sympathy. The midfield player sent Smith the wrong way from the spot to give Hearts clear daylight.

St Mirren, though, refused to lie down. Burchill came close to halving the deficit with a volley on the hour and then sending in a cross that Van Zanten narrowly missed. The addition of Corcoran’s pace gave St Mirren another weapon but ultimately, the substitute proved more profitable in the air as he gave St Mirren hope by scoring in the 78th minute.

Not surprisingly, Burchill was the architect of the goal with another fine cross. Basso, though, made a dreadful decision to come out for a ball that he never got close to and Corcoran rose to glance a header into the net.

However, before St Mirren could turn their siege into an equaliser, they were killed off by another substitute. Velicka had only been on the pitch for a few seconds when he struck in the 83rd minute. Driver’s vision picked out Velicka who profited from St Mirren’s hesitancy and advanced to squeeze his shot past Smith to seal the success.

St Mirren (4-5-1): C Smith 6 – D Van Zanten 7, J Potter 5, W Haining 7 (sub: S Kean, 47min 6), R McCay 3 – C Burchill 8, G Mason 6, H Murray 5, S O’Donnell 7 (sub: M Corcoran, 60 6), F Miranda 4 – B Mehmet 5 (sub: S McGinn, 69 4). Substitutes not used: M Howard, R Brittain, G Brady, M Docherty. Booked: McCay, Potter.

Heart of Midlothian (4-4-1-1): A Basso 4 – R Neilson 8, I Tall 7, C Berra 8, J Goncalves 8 – L Kingston 4, E Jonsson 6, M Stewart 7 (sub: M Zaliukas, 90), A Driver 7 – A Ksanavicius 5 (sub: C Elliott, 46 5) – C Nade 8 (sub: C Velicka, 82).Substitutes not used:E Kurskis, R Palenzeulos, T Kancelskis, K Ivaskevicius. Booked: Stewart, Ksanavicius.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk