Hearts right to stick to their guns over Buddies date

IT SEEMS that, despite their best intentions, Hearts are never too far away from controversy.
The latest furore has been over the Tynecastle club's refusal to switch next weekend's game against St Mirren from Saturday to the following day after the Buddies' Scottish Cup replay against Motherwell was chosen by Sky for live broadcast on Thursday night.

This means, of course, that Gus McPherson's men will have less than 48 hours to recover before they travel to Hearts for an SPL fixture that is crucial to both clubs.

St Mirren chairman Stewart Gilmour and his manager Gus McPherson were furious they wouldn't agree to budge, but all things considered I can't blame Hearts one bit for sticking to their guns.

After all, it is the Paisley club who will benefit greatly from this cup replay – netting over £80,000 from Sky – while it seems obvious that switching any game from a Saturday to a Sunday at such short notice is bound to have an adverse affect on Hearts' gate receipts and hospitality so it really wouldn't make much sense for them to change it.

You get the impression Saints want to have their cake and eat it, but they have to decide what is more important to them, the money or the recovery time for their players.

In the current financial climate, it's not a difficult decision – you take the money and run.

I'm sure that's what any other team in the SPL would do, particularly as there's no guarantee St Mirren would get a result at Tynecastle even if they had a whole week to prepare for this league clash.

Taken from the Scotsman