Three steps to mayhem

HEARTS FANS like few things better than a grievance against the SFA, so at least in that sense this was a successful afternoon. They duly exited the Homecoming Scottish Cup, with many of the denizens of Gorgie Road feeling that they had been beaten not so much by Falkirk as by referee Dougie McDonald and his officials. Such an analysis, however, deprives both teams of the credit they deserve.

Both teams finished with 10 men, with another seven players booked, but the real controversy centred around a two-minute spell about the hour mark during the second half, and a hat-trick of highly contentious decisions.

Decision one: Steve Lovell's looping header opens the scoring from a suspiciously-offside looking position, with linesman Martin Cryans keeping his flag by his side. Decision two: Falkirk then have what seems to be a perfectly good goal disallowed, when the same linesman flags Michael Higdon for offside. Decision three: Dean Holden lunges in on Andrew Driver, moving referee McDonald to award the penalty, then withdraw the decision when the other linesman, Chris Young, indicates that the challenge had been legal. TV footage later appears to back him up.
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Amazingly, Young had also overruled the referee to deny Hearts a penalty earlier this season against Aberdeen.

Hearts aired their grievances afterwards, some more rationally than others. First up was Csaba Laszlo. "I think the key point was definitely the bad and unlucky decision which led to the goal," he said.

"Up until that they didn't have any chances, they just tried to destroy the game. If it was any clearer, then you wouldn't have offsides. As for the penalty, I don't know if it was a penalty or not but if you give the penalty ... You can't give a penalty every five minutes and then cancel it.

"I've seen the penalty decision on the TV - it is one of those things that is 50/50," was new permanent skipper Robbie Neilson's response. "If it was given against you you'd be disappointed. So fair play to the linesman for having the bottle to stand up. As for the offside, we have a guy who videos it and I think it was off. I thought he was three or four yards, but it was actually only half a yard. But half a yard, 10 yards, it doesn't matter. You are still offside."

Falkirk, fresh from their first win in the SPL against Aberdeen last week, now have their first victory at this stadium since 1995, and for Holden it was the mirror image of a game last season against Hibs, where a linesman had intervened to give a penalty against him. Holden said: "I maybe got a bit of the ball, but it is risking it when you make a challenge like that in the penalty box."

Such drama seemed a million miles away during a chilly first half in which the main talking points had been the return of former Hearts duo Steven Pressley and Neil McCann, and plenty of work for the Falkirk club doctor. By the end, three Falkirk players, Holden, Lovell and Darren Barr would all have to be patched up for head knocks.

Eggert Jonsson has played centre-half, right-back, left-back, and all across the midfield during his time at Hearts, and Christian Nade's failure to pass a fitness test presented him with the chance to add striker to the list. Suffice to say, Jonsson performed like a man who had never played there before, and was withdrawn early.

It was left to Gary Glen, in the support striker's role, to pass up the better chances. Driver motored to the byline and his cutback picked the youngster out 12 yards from goal, only for Glen's instant finish to hit the advertising hoardings beyond Dani Mallo's post. Glen then brought the best out of Mallo with a shot from Neilson's cut-back.

If it had seemed like Falkirk, in a 3-5-2 formation which was more of a 5-3-2, were content to take a replay, we were proved wrong. On the hour Hughes went 3-4-3, and suddenly we had the goal - Lovell's looping header beating Balogh and rebounding off the underside of the bar and over the line, before substitute Carl Finnigan rammed it in just to make sure - then the two interventions of the match official to talk about.

One of the referee's less controversial moments came in Marius Zaliukas's third sending off of the season with six minutes to go. Not only did the Lithuanian bring Finnigan crashing to the earth when last man, but he compounded it with punches and kicks, and was lucky to just receive one red card. Scott Arfield's second yellow for downing David Obua levelled the numbers, and there was even time for Pressley to bring down Michael Stewart and get the benefit of the doubt for a third red card. It was just one more thing for the Hearts fans to moan about.

Hearts substitutes: Kingston for Jonsson 60, Elliot for Glen 66. Not used: Kello, Thomson, Mrowiec. Booked: Driver 17, Stewart 86. Sent off: Zaliukas 84.

Falkirk substitutes: Finnigan for Riera 58, Cregg for McNamara 87, O'Brien for McCann 88. Not used: Olejnik, Stewart. Booked: Arfield 31, Riera 54, Finnigan 79, McCann 80, Pressley 90, Higdon 90. Sent off: Arfield 90.

Referee: D McDonald Att: 14,569

Taken from the Sunday Herald