WOW

Ok, the next installment begins with an apology for missing last weeks update. The truth is i am just finding it hard to get excited or motivated - why on earth should that be, we beat Motherwell 3 - 0 for crying out loud and the game saw the return of two of our more celebrated players, to help us think that things may be going to get better very soon. Even more, if you handed any Hearts fan this season so far at the start of it all, to a man we would have bitten your hand off, so why should i feel a lack of motivation to keep this going.
Confessions, i think we just expect too much, have been spoiled into thinking we have some devine right to annihilate the opposition every time they turn up at Tynecastle. Now who does that remind us of i wonder?- those buggers have had decades of dominance and the knowledge that they have dwarfed the rest of us for a time spanning 3 centuries now, and we mump and moan about their arrogance and the devine right to win that they think they have. It feels symptomatic, i just accepted the 3 - 0 defeat of Motherwell as matter of fact ( in truth it was pretty uninspiring in any case ), it is a week later now and i am thinking hard to remember the goals, i will get there.

So how come i am inspired to right some stuff down this week? cos i am inspired alright! I am packed to the windaes with sporting superlatives and literary juice to match ( maybe not quite enough for a beach towel but not far off it ). This was cup week, we are through to the semi final without having really broken sweat yet or having to step outside of Gorgie either. But that is not why i am so full of it today. No, what went on yesterday evening just blew me away, blew away all the maroon fog of reliance on HMFC to make me stand up and shout.




SCOTLAND 18 - ENGLAND 12


That was the most fantastic performance by a Scottish rugby team that i have seen in years, 1990, 2000?
Scotland absolutely nailed England in every respect on every inch of Murrayfield last night - save for a very ropey lineout we were unbelievable. Scotland out-fought, out-thought, out-ran, out-played and in the end out-shone their southern counterparts from the first minute to the last. The stats are supposedly outrageous too - apparently Scotland made 112 tackles and missed just 6 of them, that doesn't tell the whole story tho it doesn't bring home the bone shattering force of every one of those 112 hits.
It has always been the case, as long as i have taken notice, that when we match up against the auld enemy we give away some pounds per man in the pack. My limited understanding of this game for mentalists aside, that always seemed like an unfair advantage to me - like Marvin Hagler meets Mike Tyson. This time round it was worse, the English just keep getting bigger. They were a full stone a man heavier than us. So the perceived wisdom is - eventually the heavier pack will grind down and wear out their smaller opponents and that is the story of England's 6 nations so far this year. The opposition are in touch with them until the last 20 minutes of the game, then the English power superiority starts to pay dividends and they run away with the game scoring most of their points in that last quarter.
So at half time after the English had owned the ball for the last 30 minutes and had pummelled and bashed against a solid Scottish defence, you could be forgiven for thinking that the second half would be more of the same eventually leading to the innevitable English tries and Scottish gallant defeat - well think again - we made them think again.
The Scottish teams defensive performance had the curious effect of wearing down the heavier opposition, but more we wore down their thought processes and their belief in themselves. As sure as the sun comes up each day the game was turned by degrees in Scotland's favour. By half way through the second half the English attack had run out of ideas and ability to cross the gain line and Scotland's running play was forcing penalties, which we were converting. A drop goal set the seal on a passage of play and forced home the fact that we not only could but probably would win this one. I would have been quite happy to report on a valiant Scottish pack holding on desperately to snatch a narrow win from under the noses of the superior English but that wouldn't be the truth. In the end Scotland were as likely to score as the English were and ran out well deserving winners.
It has been many years since i have gotten excited about Scotland and the six nations, i remember when i used to spend Saturday afternoons in the pub watching great games ( and many a mental night followed ), some we lost and some we won but we always thought we could win. That belief has been gone for a while now from Scottish rugby, this and the earlier victory against France might just bring those days back - that would be fantastic.

So back to the football -

3 - 0 against Motherwell last weekend.
A storming run down the left and cross to the near post was parried by the keeper only for Jankauskas to pounce on the loose bal and slam it into the top of the net. This came immediately after Motherwell hit the post, with Craig Gordon stranded. Hearts were 1-0 up after 7 minutes. Not so long after we were 2 - 0 up, quite similar only the cross came from the right this time and the ball came all the way out to past the 18 yard line. Jankauskas again, he started this move passing out to the right from a midfield position. He had just kept jogging toward the box and did not have to break his stride when the ball came back out his way - he just melted it into the top right hand side of the net. It was a screamer. So the famous Tynecastle mauling for the next half an hour i think, but no we are not really ticking just now. The disruptions of January and early February are still flowing through the team i think.
Motherwell kept plugging away and probably deserved something out of the game but the nail came with a neat move through their midfield and back four that saw Callum Elliot in one of those chases for the ball that can go one of three ways.
The keeper rushing out just gets there before the attacker and manages to smother the ball or launch it up the park.
The desperate defender brings down the attacker, penalty and sent off
or
The attacker gets there just in front of the keeper and deftly clips the ball over his head and into the empty net - Elliot accomplished this with great aplomb.
Still when all is said and done we made heavy weather of a 3 - 0 gubbing.

So to the cup game, Partick Thistle at Tynecastle. They were in the Premier League just a couple of seasons ago but have fallen badly and are now stuck in the second division. Looked like there were divisions between the two when Hartley crossed for Jankauskas to head in after only 3 minutes. So you would be forgiven once again for thinking - here we go, this one will be over by half time. Not a bit of it a combination of a pretty sloppy game by Hearts and Partick indulging in their cup final meant that Partick were always in this and should really have gotten a draw out of it. A cracking effort by Cesnauskis which reminded me of a goal Kenny Dalgleish scored against Spain at Hampden in the qualifiers for the 86 world cup - i was behind the goals at the time watching King Kenny curl the ball into the top left corner - you know i think that is the last time i have gone to a Scotland game? Maybe Cesnauskis hit the ball in a bit straighter and with more venom than Dalgleish's glorious curling effort but other than that they were pretty much the same thing.
Bednar had come on as part of his recuperation from long term injury but got booked after a couple of minutes and red carded ten minutes later for diving in the box - it was pretty hard to see but i think he took a dive the fanny.
So twenty minutes left and we are 2 up and down to ten men, Partick throw everything they had at us and went 5 up, a decent Hearts performance would have picked them off on the break but we were pretty poor and struggled just to keep possession.
A great solo effort ended in Partick scoring a well deserved goal and the stage was set for Hearts to hold on desperately in the end.

So we are through all be it with no glory, who cares really. I have made my mind up that i will be satisfied with nothing less than tanking Hibs in the final. So Hibs beat Falkirk 5 - 1, excellent, we must avoid each other in the semi's tho.

Well am no laughin

If any of us had any lingering thoughts of a league title this year, this last week has nailed them stone dead, and thats the good news!

I was playing 5's last Tuesday after work as Hearts were heading up to Tannadice with a chance of reducing the deficit with celtic to 5 points - all be it for 24hrs only. It was on the way to the game of 5's that i started hearing the news - Graham Rix had walked into the Hearts changing room earlier in the day and stated "i am no longer in full control of this team"
I thought Vlad would have waited until the eve of the cup final before he instigated another needless crisis.

With 20-20 hindsight it is obvious that Vlad was going to pull another coup after his extravagance in the transfer window.
Here is my take on what might have gone down during that day - this is pure speculation ofcourse.......

With all these new players at his dosposal Vlad just can't help himself and grabs Rix for a quiet word in his shell like -

VLAD "Graham, we have all these great new players and that Neilson he is not that good really is he - i want you to replace him with Petras he is much better and more importantly he is not Scottish"

RIX "Mr Romanov Sir, there is no way i can contemplate that. This is a very important game and Robbie has been a fundemental part of our excellent back 4 all season. It would be a big mistake to replace him with Petras who is not match fit and in any case we have not really see what he can do yet."

VLAD "Oh come now Graham, surely you must see that we have brought in all these superior players and need to promote them to the first team at the earliest opportunity"

RIX "Mr Romanov Sir, even if that were the case, this is not that opportunity - we must stick with our proven back 4 which has the best defensive record in Scotland and one of the best in all of Europe"

VLAD getting a bit impatient with all this pesky banter "Mr Rix, let me try to explain, if you do not do as i request and rest young Mr Neilson you can again start to look for work in the lower reaches of English regional football" "Oh yes and before i forget you should also find a place in the team for our new boy Straceny - he's great"

RIX "GMMMMPHH"

Rix slopes off to the changing rooms to address the team, but does not give himself time to come up with a believable excuse for dropping Robbie Neilson, so has no option but to tell him the truth.

RIX "Robbie, sorry lad you are on the bench tonight, Petras you are in at right back. If you want an explanation don't blame me because - I am not in full control of the team !!!!! "

WEBSTER "Whit ? "

Webster storms off to have a conference with his agent who advices him to halt all contract negotiations
Back in the changing rooms

WEBSTER "Boss, i am not standing for this, i have just talked to my agent and have called off all contract negotiations. Romanaov has taken it too far he has f*&ked with us one too many times - are you even still gonna be here by tonight"

RIX "Hold on lad, i will have a word with Mr Romanov and let him know your position"

Rix on the phone to Vlad

RIX "Mr Romanov Sir, we have a situation, Andy Webster has found out about the Robbie Neilson situation and has called off all negotiations for his new contract"

VLAD "The wee sh*te, right thats it drop him as well. So which one of our wonderful new players can we bring in to replace Webster"

RIX "Erm no one Mr Romanov Sir - you did not buy another centre half, we will need to use young Christophe Berra"

VLAD "Christophe Berra eh, he does not sound very Scottish, i guess he is pretty good then eh - right get him on"


So we went up to Dundee Utd with 6 changes from the team that beat Aberdeen 3 - 0 in the cup 3 days earlier. I would not read too much into that given 3 of those changes were regulars coming back into the team from suspensions and illness ( political or otherwise ). The other 3 explained maybe by the nonsense i have stated above. The media was having a field day tho and six changes sounds like a crisis and worthy of more air time and column inches. Truth is we just plain played shite - if you tracked the season we do that about once every 6 or 8 games or something like that. Petras played awful and got hauled off probably for his own good, Neilson got his place back after an hour but Webster remained on the bench throughout. The rest of the new guys were annonomous and the regulars were below par.

Diagnosis - the team are traumatised after another self inflicted implosion.
Prognosis - haven't a bloody clue

So to Aberdeen back to Tynecastle after last weeks gubbing ( it is 7 years since they have won against Hearts in Edinburgh ).
Hearts started as if they intended to exorcise Tuesday against Dundee Utd by slaughtering the Dons in quick fashion. We were 1 - 0 up after only 7 or 8 minutes after a characteristic Skacel scamper down the left and cut back to the near post for Elliot to slot home. That is the 3rd front post slot home on the trot by Elliot and is fast becoming a trade mark Hearts goal - almost allways Skacel and Elliott or Hartley at the front post to dispatch all seems far too easy when we do it.
So as expected Hearts would now indulge in their customary - overwhlem the opposition until the games won strategy
But
No we just fell straight out of the game - don't think i have seen that at Tynecastle this season yet.
I said to a guy in the work during the week that if Hearts aren't 2 - 0 up at half time then i am worried and i was worried.
Of the new guys who played in this one -

Aguar Looked off the pace but may well be a player
Petras Played in front of the defence for suspended Brellier this time. Probably got on a bit better than on Tuesday but can't see why he would be favoured in front of any of the home players
Beslija You know what if you gave me £800,000 i would do that as well
Straceny Came on after the break and was taken off 20 minutes later, you could argue it was tactical but lets face it, there is not much you can say about that.

This game was a shambles in terms of the play and the tactics and the subs and everything else - too many changes brought instability and we are on a shoogly peg in any case. Right now it feels like a totally new team out there that definitely needs to bed itself in. On top of all that we have previously regular players Jankauskas and Bednar who will also be back in contention for places, mind you i don't think either of those will do any harm at the moment.

Lastly and by all means leastly ex Hibs/Dundee manager and pundit Jim Duffy is our new Director of Football. To be honest i have no idea what one of those guys does and i have no real problem with Jim apart from the fact that he is a failed manager in the tiny Scottish managerial pool. So the question is Why?
Current thought is that both Rix and Duffy are until the end of the season so i wouldn't read anything into this really.

Glory Glory to H ..................

Hold on wait a minute, lets get one thing straight....

WHEN THE HEARTS GO UP TO LIFT THE SCOTTISH CUP WE'LL BE THERE ! WE'LL BE THERE !!

Lets get another thing straight, i took as much pleasure watching the highlights of Hibs mugging rangers 3 - 0 at Ibrox again! as i did watching that of Hearts saunter through to the quarter finals against a less than fortunate and less than any good Aberdeen team.
It's not so much that Hibs played out of their skins, i have mentioned this before this season, you don't really need to play out of your skins against Rangers cos they really are pretty crap. They just rode their luck a bit in the first half and Rangers missed opportunities and Hibs took their chances. When they got their noses in front there was only one winner and in the end Rangers were all over the place and a rampant Hibs team could have made it 5 or 6. So much for the wee team fae Edinburgh, lets get back to the main event. I'll wax lyrical about the romance of the cup, welcome respite from the stutteringly mental league campaign.

It is early doors yet, only the quarter finals after all but with both halves of the gruesome twosome out of the competition we have got to fancy our chances.

Here are the ones i remember.......

1976 Hearts v Rangers
Was it 2 - 1 or 3 -1 to the bad guys, i can't recall now.
The bits i do remember are -
Jim Jeffries was playing for Hearts
Dad had a dozen cans of McEwans Export secreted about his personage somehow?
There were 86,000 or something there that day but it seemed like twice as many.
We were beat from the off.

1986 Hearts v Aberdeen
Christ! we got murdered 3 - 0
After the apocalypse of the Saturday before this game, i am certain everyone of us in the crowd that day knew we had nothing left in the tank, physically or emotionally. It was like watching a funeral procession.
Actually I seem to remember we were unlucky in the first 10 or 15 minutes so maybe it could all have been very different.
Aberdeen just didn't lose cup finals around then, nae wonder their supporters still wear drain pipes and mullets.

1996 Hearts v Rangers
Rangers 5 Hearts didnae turn up
This is the one where i drove up from Yeovil for the weekend and you flew over from Toronto, so we could watch the game in the Caley Sample Rooms. The fun lasted about as long as i waited at the bar to get served and the staff were sh*t hot that day.
Actaully I seem to remember we were unlucky in the first 5 minutes and so maybe ........ na screw it, lets just forget all about this one.

hhhhmmmmm I detect a bit of a pattern here, we get to the cup final every ten years - in the year with a 6 in it and then we get gubbed and slope of back to Edinburgh for another decade. This does not bode well for this years campaign, this is after all a decade later, it is a year with a 6 in it. We need the pattern broken, wait a minute.....

1998 Hearts v Rangers
Rangers 1 Hearts 2
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Don't remember a thing!
Jason and Dad missed the game because of the car crash we had on the way to the semi-final. We make up for that this year.


In between these two finals we had the final of the diddy cup in 97 - we nearly took Rangers. Ended up getting beat 4 - 2, but we had got it back to 2 - 2 from 2 - 0 down and they were definitely rattled - until Ally Mcmoist stepped in to kill us off. Still thats just the diddy cup and who gives a flying .... about that.

So to Saturday's game.
The first half was almost a mirror image of the game against Hibs last week.
Shaky start, but survive without losing a goal. Then we get the break and in a frenzy of 20 minutes we kill the game off and force a sending off for the hapless opposition. I wonder what would have happened in either of these games if we had not weathered the initial 15 minutes? Don't think we have had to come back from a goal down at Tynecastle this season.
There is a bit more to this than meets the eye tho -
Hearts were without Hartley due to a 3 match suspension - this is for the petulent kick-out he had at the end of the Celtic game in January. Didn't see it myself, i was too busy watching Craig Gordon try to turn and volley in a last minute equaliser at the time !!
This was troublesome for us but couple that with now regular's, Takiss Fyssas and Rudi Skacel both calling in sick with flu and, if this was last week we really would have struggled, but we have 2 teams now. In came Goncalves ( Gon-Tha-L-Ves i think ) for Fyssas and new record signing Mirsad Beslija for Rudi. So this was maybe just a good opportunity to try out some of these guys.
Beslija is the guy who most noise has been made about and the signing dragged on for ages, it was off it was on. There was more than one agent wanting a cut of the action or something like that. Anyroads 1Million euros and he eventually signed. His debut was pretty quiet all in all until he picked up a knock midway through the second half. Goncalves on the other hand had a great game, this i think might just work out a treat. I am a big Fyssas fan, a left back who is also a cultured football player. One thing he does not have tho is pace so there are games where i worry a wee bit on that side. So if we can mix and match Fyssas and Goncalves dependant on who they will be up against then fantastic.
Beslija is a right sided winger, so Cesnauskis was moved over to the left and he showed his worth by setting up the 2nd goal from that side.
The first goal was set up by Callum Elliott, he took the ball on the right and rolled his foot over it a few times , sheilding from the Aberdeen defender. Absolutely no right to get a cross over, he clipped to the near post for Pospisil to neatly side foot into the roof of the net. Very good finish and great work by Elliott but he should never had been allowed to cross.
The second goal was similar but from the left, Cesnauskis is pretty quick and good with the ball at his feet, he hit the by line and played a cut back low to the front post, Elliott slotted home at the near post. A lot of people raved about Pospisil's goal but i thought Elliott's finish to beat the keeper at the near post was class.
Just before the second goal, Aberdeen had a stone wall penalty turned down, Andy Webster blatantly pulling back Steve Crawford on the six yard line. Hard lines for them i guess.
The third goal was also hard lines for them, a neat through ball for Pospisil to run on to he appeared to be clipped on the edge of the box. Clear goal scoring opportunity so the defender had to go. But then so was the Webster/Crawford affair. Like i said in the match report for the Celtic game, i don't like that rule. A booking fair enough but sending off is harsh. Penalty to Hearts, hard lines on Aberdeen, the tackle was a good 2 feet outside the box. But what they hell, some you win some you lose, the important thing is we took our chances.
In any case even if Aberdeen had scored, we would have put more into the game and beaten them anyroads.
The second half was a bit of a snore, with Aberdeen dead and buried Hearts wisely conserved energy and played the game out.

Dundee Utd away on Tuesday night, and the very luckless Aberdeen are back down to Tynecastle next Saturday on league business. Another week of this new squad training together should make it even tougher on the sheep worry-ers.
At the same time Celtic play Rangers at Ibrox so somethings got to give, my own preferred choice not being a gambling man is for a draw, which will hurt each of them in equal measures - course we need to win both these games to make any sense of that.