All is well – Hearts win another derby !!

Hearts produced some good spells of football in among the usual frenetic derby fare at Tynecastle as they notched up a fine 2-0 win. A well-worked move involving Jamie Hamill and Ian Black set up a first-half goal for Ryan Stevenson, with the home side just about deserving their lead at the interval. The game opened up a bit in the 2nd half, with Hearts enjoying the lion`s share of chances – culminating in Andy Webster`s header from a Grainger corner crossing the goal-line before being cleared out to substitute Eggert Jonsson who fired it into the net to make sure.

Paulo Sergio continued to rotate his squad, leaving out Jamie MacDonald, Scott Robinson, David Templeton, Gordon Smith, Eggert Jonsson, Arvydas Novikovas, Rudi Skacel and Ryan McGowan from the Spurs game – and bringing in Marian Kello, Jamie Hamill, Ryan Stevenson, Andrew Driver, Adrian Mroweic, David Obua, Stephen Elliott and Ian Black.

There were some bad-tempered moments throughout, and the 3 hothead Hibbys on the pitch (O`Connnor, Murray and on-loan Leigh Griffiths) all lost the place at times and were booked. For Hearts, Ryan Stevenson can count himself slightly fortunate not to be red-carded for a bad foul on Ian Murray – escaping with a yellow. The one slightly harsh Hibs yellow card was shown to Akpo Sodje who innocently went for a 50-50 ball with Marian Kello after Andy Webster was short with a back-header – the collision resulting in a bad shoulder injury which forced the keeper to go off a few minutes later (replaced by Jamie MacDonald. Jamie had to look lively to make 2 saves as Hibs looked for a way back in to the match.

It was encouraging to see Driver get involved in some good attacks in the 2nd half – and he was unlucky to see his follow-up to an Elliott shot which came back off the post get sliced away by keeper Stack. Young Andrew has only been a shadow of his former self recently, and hopefully this match will go some way to restoring the confidence he needs to become one of the top SPL forwards.

Danny Grainger looks better with each game, both defensively and in taking the ball into the opponents` half. He and Jamie Hamill played well today. Even the much-maligned Obua contributed well to the midfield drive alongside Black, before having to retire when he collided with Stack when going for a high ball.

With a free weekend coming up, September presents a great opportunity to improve our league standing even further, with away games at Inverness and Perth and a home match against St. Mirren – our target has to be 9 points.

What were your impressions of our latest derby win ?