Hearts survive red card to stretch unbeaten record against Hibernian

Scottish Premier
Hibernian 2 Miller (pen) 35, Vaz Te 80 Hearts 2 Stevenson 24, Elliott 83

Ewan Murray at Easter Road
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 April 2011 19.03 BST

On a weekend during which police investigated a touchline bust-up between the Motherwell chairman, John Boyle, and Aberdeen's manager, Craig Brown, Edinburgh's teams proved again that the Old Firm do not have a monopoly on highly charged fixtures.

The Scottish Premier League will take an interest in events at Easter Road after missiles were launched at the Hearts defender Ismal Bouzid as he prepared to take a first-half throw-in. The appearance of foreign objects from that area, the east side of the ground, has been a recurring theme when Hibs host their city rivals.

Members of the Hearts support, too, got carried away as Stephen Elliott claimed a point for their team, seven minutes from time. Some visiting followers had to be forcibly removed from the pitch; one stood on the penalty spot, unchallenged and open-armed for quite a length of time. With all of this in mind, the Scottish Premier League is likely to send a strongly worded letter to Hibernian, reminding of them of security requirements.

On the field, a 10-man Hearts stretched their unbeaten derby record to seven games. Within the first 25 minutes Ryan Stevenson had sent Hearts in front with a fierce low shot. Jim Jefferies's team had already passed up three other glaring chances and were denied a penalty as Paul Hanlon fouled Elliott.

What followed owed much to the incompetence of the Hearts captain, Marius Zaliukas. The centre-half found himself on the wrong side of Akpo Sodje as the Hibs forward moved to meet a Derek Riordan cross. Rather than subsequently paying attention to the ball, Zaliukas turned his focus towards Sodje, fouled him and was sent off. Hearts did have a legitimate grievance over the issuing of a red card to Zaliukas – Sodje was not the clear favourite over the Hearts goalkeeper Jamie MacDonald to collect the ball – but the spot-kick was obvious. Liam Miller secured half-time parity from 12 yards.

Hibs had looked to have run out of attacking intent by the time Ricardo Vaz Tê marked his debut with a goal. The former Bolton striker earned the break of the ball, supplying a low finish past MacDonald thereafter.

Hearts may have been depleted in personnel terms, but the same did not apply to their spirit. Elliott, who had worked tirelessly throughout, capped off his afternoon's work with a first-time finish after the outstanding Andy Webster nodded a Craig Thomson free-kick into his path. There remained time for two Hibs chances to end Hearts' recent city dominance, Riordan wasting them both.

"We should make sure we see out victory," said the Hibs manager, Colin Calderwood, whose team's hopes of making the SPL's top six are now remote. "The difficult thing was to score the [second] goal. At the big moment, we didn't do our job."

Taken from the Guardian/Observer