New year but same old problems for Easter Road side as city rivals maintain derby dominance

THE Edinburgh derby seems to have been reinvented as an event held solely to please Hearts.

They're heavily in debt, they're for sale, they can't afford to pay the wages of their players, yet they continue to lord it over their city rivals. All their problems melt away in the derbies and by comfortably winning the first of 2012 they moved up to fourth in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.

All the goals came in the final 33 minutes although Hearts' superiority was clear long before that. Their fans lapped it up, not sure whether to boast about their own team or taunt Hibernian's suffering support about heading to the first division. The suffering goes on and on for Hibs. That's nine derbies without a win and the new manager, Pat Fenlon, hasn't managed a victory over anyone at all. The only riposte they could give about facing relegation would be that Dunfermline Athletic look poorer than them, which isn't much to crow about.

Ryan McGowan, Andy Webster and Rudi Skacel scored the goals, Ian Black missed a penalty and David Templeton hit a post. Hearts weren't consistently impressive and in the first half their play was almost as erratic and mediocre as Hibs', but they had most of the possession and controlled the majority of the game. The home side equalised through a Marius Zaliukas own goal but otherwise toiled to make any sort of threat. Some of the midfield battles were wild at times giving referee Calum Murray a torrid introduction to his new year. Hibs fans wanted McGowan sent off for headbutting Ivan Sproule in the guts as he rose after a challenge, but that was tame. Guts was all Hibs had to bring to the party and it simply wasn't good enough.

Easter Road has never needed its 20,400 capacity since the new East Stand was opened 17 months ago and this was the latest major fixture taking place in front of a few thousands empty seats. There was as good a turnout of home supporters as could be expected, given the rubbish they've been subjected to most of the season. They did their best to rise to the occasion although predictably there was a bit more buoyancy in the Hearts end, where they amused themselves yesterday by taunting their host about their relegation worries.

Hearts had the better of a tousy first half only to end it by maintaining their recent habit of failing to score from the spot. They got a penalty kick just before the interval when Callum Booth's careless pass-back amounted to a cross for Stephen Elliott. Goalkeeper Graham Stack came out to clear the danger but his challenge was clumsy and a clear foul. Hibs feared losing a goal to a penalty and Stack to a red card; instead they got away with both. After he was only booked the goalkeeper dived low to his right to push away Black's soft penalty. Hibs felt they should have had a penalty of their own when Webster held Leigh Griffiths' shirt inside the box but it wasn't much of an offence.

Hearts were by far the better of the two sides. Templeton hit the post with a low shot early on, then Mehdi Taouil made such a mess of a fine chance that he not only spooned a shot well wide of the goal but somehow hurt his hamstring in the process and had to limp off. Hearts upheld their commitment to attack by replacing him with Andrew Driver.

With Sproule and Danny Galbraith supporting Griffiths, at least in theory, there were attacking players on both sides. There was always more poise and belief in Hearts. They took nearly an hour to get the lead they deserved and then held it for barely a minute. Black had pulled an excellent save out of Stack with a long, swerving shot. From the resulting corner Stack got a hand to Webster's header from point-blank range but it was too hard for him to keep out, even before McGowan made sure by getting the final touch to nod it into the net. Hibs' defending was poor although they were right to claim the goal should have been ruled out because Elliott was in an offside position and interfering having planted himself directly in front of Stack.

What happened next was the equivalent of taking ages to get a fire going and then immediately pouring a bucket of water on it. The Hearts supporters were still in full voice when Hibs raced up the other end of the park, culminating in Galbraith drilling a hard, low cross into the goalmouth. Zaliukas wasn't able to do anything other than ram it into his own net.

Hibs had saved a penalty and equalised through an own goal, yet not even that was enough. Hearts blazed away to win as substitute John Sutton made two late goals. First he laid the ball off for Webster to drill home a low finish, then he picked out a cross for fellow substitute Skacel to control the ball before lashing it beyond Stack in stoppage time. After the first goal and at full-time, Black lifted up his shirt to reveal a t-shirt alluding to his occasional part-time work as a painter and decorator. "I'll paint this place maroon," it said. By the end of the match, it felt like he had.

Taken from the Herald