Defeat And A Draw For Hearts

Pre-season has moved on for Hearts this week with our results mixed with a defeat at Stirling Albion followed up by a draw at Cowdenbeath.

First up was the Supporters Direct Scotland Cup on Tuesday; a two-one defeat at Forthbank was suffered with Stirling making sure that this trophy stayed with them.

Obviously with two games in 24-hours Robbie Neilson was going to field a mixed squad but U20s trialist Dario Zanatta was among those given a game.

McLean had given us a first half lead but Dickson and a Stirling trialist saw them complete a comeback win.

First-half: Alexander, Paterson, McHattie, Jones, Howlett-Mundle, McKirdy, Zanatta, Anderson, McLean, El Hassnaoui, Moore.

Second-half: Hamilton, L. Smith, McGhee, Howlett-Mundle, Baur, Walker, Buchanan, King, I. Smith, Sow, Reilly.

A full report can be seen on the Official Website.

The following night, Wedneday, Neilson was taking us to Cowdenbeath with this game ending in a draw this time.

Zanatta was given another game, all in all though the team that ended the Stirling defeat started at Central Park and we couldn’t have got off to a better start with King giving us a first minute lead.

As with the Stirling game this lead was lost though when Johnston equalised for our hosts before half time, this time we didn’t fall behind with this ending in a one-one draw.

First-half: Hamilton, L. Smith, I. Smith, Baur, McGhee, Buchanan, Zanatta, Walker, Sow, Reilly, King.

Second-half: Alexander, Paterson, Jones, Baur, McHattie, Anderson, McKirdy, Zanatta, Moore, Oliver, McLean.

This too has a match report you can view on the Official Website.

In many ways these friendlies not all ending in wins isn’t a bad thing as such, results as we know aren’t the main thing from pre-season anyway!

That being said we’d sooner avoid defeat and momentum is momentum however this is built up so having put Tuesday’s defeat behind us with a draw on Wednesday we want to build this up again heading into the upcoming season….