Consecutive league wins put Tynecastle club within sight of top six ahead of CIS Cup semi

Hearts 1 Nade (55)

That cherished destination, which threatened to disappear over the horizon last month as the Edinburgh club endured one of the worst runs in their history, is once more visible to the naked eye, a mere five points away.

That any club can play so badly for so long yet retain a chance of a high-place finish is surely due to the epidemic of mediocrity which has afflicted the SPL, but football has always been partly about profiting from the shortcomings of others, and Hearts are unlikely to become too apologetic if they do succeed in clambering into the upper half of the table.

They are still some way short of achieving the consistency required to do so, however, for while they made it two league wins on the bounce on Saturday, this result and victory a week earlier in the Edinburgh derby sandwiched a Scottish Cup replay defeat by Motherwell in which most of Hearts' old, familiar failings were all too clearly on display. But at least their modest improvement has put Hearts in a good spirit for their CIS Cup semi-final against Rangers on Wednesday, and victory in that match would surely provide a platform on which they could maintain a sustained run of form.

And whatever the result at Hampden, Hearts' next match, at home to Gretna, has to be regarded as the ideal opportunity to make it three back-to-back league wins, even if they will be taking nothing for granted against a club with whom they have only ever drawn over 90 minutes.

Aberdeen, whose semi-final against Dundee United is a day earlier, seem to have become a mirror image of Hearts. They lost badly to United nine days ago, picked themselves up with a confident Scottish Cup win over Falkirk, and then came back to earth with a bump here. They were not that far away from claiming a share of the points, having battled back strongly late in the game after being thrown off their stride by first-half injuries to Derek Young and Scott Severin. Jamie Smith followed in the second half after picking up a hamstring strain, but all three stand a good chance of featuring in Jimmy Calderwood's squad at Tynecastle tomorrow evening.

It was a fierce shot by Richard Foster which constituted Aberdeen's best chance of salvaging a point, but Steve Banks in the Hearts goal managed to turn it round his post. That effort five minutes or so from time came in the middle of a long period of pressure by the home team, who had gone behind ten minutes into the second half.

Stuart Duff was the inadvertent culprit on his debut, as he stuck out a foot to redirect a header from Christos Karipidis some ten yards inside the Aberdeen half. It did not matter whether Duff's touch was intended as a pass to one of his centre-backs or to his goalkeeper, for the man it found was Christian Nade. The Frenchman, who had been sauntering back towards his own half, gathered possession, turned, and bore down on Jamie Langfield. He ran on into the box, then found the net with a powerful finish.

Both Langfield and Calderwood later castigated Nade for being lazy in his attempts to track back, which seemed to miss the point, which was that for once the striker managed to put his supposed indolence to good use.

While Aberdeen pressed strongly after the goal, Hearts always threatened on the counter-attack, and Andrius Velicka passed up a good chance to score his team's second when he sent a shot over Langfield's crossbar.

With quarter of an hour to go, Velicka gave way to Ricardas Beniusis, whose cameo appearance showed the difference a little confidence can make to a player and a team. After a competitive debut against Hibs in which he was well off the pace, the big target man was cruelly christened 'Benny Useless' and was the subject of suggestions that his was the worst debut by a Hearts player in recent memory. He was anything but useless here,
however, and laid on a decent chance for Audrius Ksanavicius as well as having a shot on target himself.

Hearts' celebrations at the end of five additional minutes were equal parts joy and relief. Langfield suggested they might not have had the chance to celebrate had the referee, William Collum, assessed the duel between Christophe Berra and Lee Miller differently.

"Big Lee was very harshly treated," Langfield said at the end of a contest in which the Hearts captain was cautioned for persistent fouling of the Aberdeen striker. "I think the referee was very lenient on the boy Berra."

The two did niggle away all game, and there was contact between them in almost every challenge, but at times Miller appeared to go down too easily. So too, in the eyes of Mr Collum, did Saulius Mikoliunas on one occasion late in the game, and the Lithuanian winger received a booking for simulation.

Taken from the Scotsman