Skacel helps Tynecastle men grab headlines for right reasons

Chris Tait

HEARTS are supposed to pay their players today.

Someone had to say it. Given the club's failure to meet its obligations on time over recent months it is hard not to take note when pay-day rolls around.

Inadvertently, however, the wages issue is preserving a trend that has allowed what is happening off the field at Tynecastle to so often enshroud everything else. Which is a bit of a shame, really, as the Edinburgh side have recently given us so much more to talk about.

Take Saturday, for example. Within 14 minutes, St Mirren had already cancelled out Marius Zaliukas' opening goal from the penalty spot and had gained a numerical advantage after the Hearts defender was sent off for a foul on scorer Paul McGowan. The Paisley side became impertinent and incisive. Hearts won 5-2.

This Tynecastle team have learned to revel in adversity. A run of six matches without defeat – which includes a 3-1 win over Hibernian at Easter Road – has made a mockery of the club's various foibles and has hoisted Hearts into third place in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League. They have been imbued with bullishness, and when John Sutton scored late on it felt like a pithy riposte to those who may continue to doubt them as a football side, even if their reputation as a football club has been defamed almost irredeemably.

They also have Rudi Skacel. The Czech midfielder holds a genuine affection for Hearts and he dutifully assumed full responsibility for ensuring that the focus would be on football this week, scoring a hat trick against St Mirren.

He is a likeable character and an erudite footballer, if a little hedonistic; each of his goals was struck with typical aplomb, although Craig Samson, the St Mirren goalkeeper, could have done better at the third. Yet, Skacel is out of contract at the end of this month and, should he leave Scottish football, his personality as much as his talent will be sorely missed. Especially by Hearts fans.

"I think I give a special treat to supporters – they give me a special power to score goals here," said Skacel, whose eight league goals this season have already led to a loan offer from Crawley Town.

"Probably the supporters will think that this could be my last game. January is a short window; I know these things give you good stories but I spoke last week with Sergei [Fedotovas, the Hearts director] and we will speak next week. Hopefully we can make some solution to extend [his contract] for another five months."

St Mirren would likely rather he didn't, but of more pressing concern will be discerning quite how they managed to lose a lead – Steven Thompson's looping header followed McGowan's penalty – and a match as emphatically as they did.

The confident verve that marked their play in the first half disappeared after the break, leaving the Paisley side without a win since Christmas Eve, when they defeated Rangers. The ineluctable intervention of Skacel was one thing, but there is an intrinsic fragility to this St Mirren side which has been exposed all too often of late.

There is also the ignominy of tomorrow having to go through a replay with Hamilton Academical in the fourth round of the William Hill Scottish Cup to punctuate an uncomfortable few weeks.

"My message to my players was, if there is a mistake then forget about, it's how you react to that mistake, and we didn't react well," said Danny Lennon, the St Mirren manager.

Taken from the Herald