Hearts 2 Hibernian 0

IF ever a game summed up the state of Scottish football today, this was it

BILL LECKIE

CHASING shadows. Chasing their own tails.

And now, chasing the rest of the league.

Hibs under Colin Calderwood are a shambles. There's just no other way to put it.

This was a day when they needed senior players to produce something special to haul them off the foot of the table and lift the gloom gathering over an entire club.

Instead, what they had in every area was men who made the kind of mistakes that superglue teams into relegation zones.

The first goal came from runs not being matched and from defenders standing like statues when the cross came in.

The second was off the back off keeper Graham Stack fumbling a simple shot for a corner that ended up in the net.

They were always living on the edge, always giving the ball away in daft areas and stretching to dig themselves out of danger.

They were always going to pay for that and finally they did in the dying minutes of the first half.

Matt Thornhill was caught napping in midfield and had the ball nipped off his toe.

Ian Black scurried forward and waited for Jamie Hamill to hare past on the overlap.

The right-back did just that. Hibs left-back Callum Booth didn't go with him.

And when the cutback skidded into the box, Ryan Stevenson charged onto it untracked by midfield oppo Isaiah Osbourne for an unerring sidefoot finish. Watch the replays on telly. See the FOUR green shirts the ball has to come through to reach the scorer. It's CRIMINAL.

Their defending at the second goal, midway through the second half, wasn't just as awful. No, sloppy is more the word.

First, they let a cross from the right travel all the way across their six-yard line and find Andrew Driver all alone at the far post.

Then, when he tried to square back into the mixer, Stack went down at his near post and butter-fingered behind for a corner.

When it came in, no one attacked the ball the way Webster did — and even though Osbourne slid to try and boot off the line, it was in vain.

Eggert Jonsson followed in just to make sure, but the Scotland stopper was already off and running, thrilled at his first goal of the season.

Away at the other end of Tynecastle, the first away fans starting slinking off into the rainy afternoon.

Long before the end, hundreds more would join them, fed up to the back teeth with what they were seeing.

No wonder. This was a Hibs side who seemed to think that ploughing into tackles they had no chance of winning is the way to a supporter's heart.

Well, that only works when you're in the game. Putting yourself on a booking when it's running away from you only weakens whatever chance there is of rescuing a result.

Take Ivan Sproule. They needed him to get his jet-pack on and fly at Danny Grainger, but instead he hoofed the full-back within the first ten minutes and put himself on a knife-edge.

A couple of half-decent runs later, he was hooked inside an hour.

Then there's Ian Murray, so valuable a player when he gets his head up and uses his passion for the shirt in a positive way.

But sadly, when all he's doing is getting angry and frustrated, the only sure thing is that he'll get himself booked somewhere along the line.

Garry O'Connor tried to work the line alone — partner Junior Agogo was as good as TWO men short — but you could see his fuse burning down and eventually he took a kick at Hamill and he was carded.

Even when boss Calderwood tried to shake things up with a couple of changes, the most significant contribution Leigh Griffiths and Akpo Sodje made were nasty fouls.

Griffiths, desperate to impress after he arrived on loan to his boyhood heroes, lunged at Hamill within a minute of appearing and he went in the book.

Then Sodje went in chest-high on Marian Kello as a ball bounced in the box and the keeper was forced to hobble off.

In fairness, Hearts might have been down to ten men just before the break. Maybe the adrenaline was still pumping from his goal, but when a loose ball broke between him and Murray, the burly Stevenson went right over the top and was lucky ref Craig Thomson only showed a yellow.

Even with ten men, though, you'd have fancied them.

Stephen Elliott clipped a shot against a post from Stevenson's cutback and Driver couldn't force home the rebound, Stack blocked at the rampaging Hamill's feet and all around the stands, Jambo fans in a rain-soaked 15,868 crowd sang the name of new coach Paulo Sergio over and over.

The Portuguese had left out all eight of the men who'd come in and done a right good job at White Hart Lane on Thursday night.

But he got it right, there's no argument about that.

Slowly but surely, he's establishing this as HIS team — as shown by summer signing John Sutton being left out of the 18 once again.

That's a worry for a striker who arrived with a big reputation.

But Sergio is showing that these things mean nothing to him, and the reaction he's got from his squad since the 5-0 humping by Spurs ten days ago shows he's getting it right.

Two draws and a win, three clean sheets and a new-found work ethic have won the punters back round double-quick.

The one thing he was never going to get from his men, of course, was the ice in the veins he had said was vital in the fury of a derby showdown.

He must surely know now that NO ONE wins these games without channelling their red-hot emotions the right way.

Just ask Colin Calderwood.