Mikoliunas punishes Hibs for ill discipline

Ewan Murray at Tynecastle
Wednesday December 27, 2006
The Guardian

Tynecastle has seldom been a dull place in recent times with off-field shenanigans surrounding Heart of Midlothian's owner, Vladimir Romanov, proving more newsworthy than unimpressive fare on the pitch. Yet excitement returned to Edinburgh's western outskirts for the right reasons yesterday during an enthralling derby which contained five goals, a penalty, a sending-off and the positive brand of football which is in such painfully short supply in the Premierleague.

An 18-yard strike from Saulius Mikoliunas sealed a deserved victory for Hearts, after Hibernian had bravely battled back from two goals behind.

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The turning point, though, arrived before Mikoliunas's spectacular finish with the visitors' Dean Shiels sent off seconds after scoring a penalty to level the scores at two apiece. Shiels, in an attempt to preserve his team's momentum, ran to retrieve the ball from the Hearts goalmouth but in doing so collided spectacularly with the goalkeeper, Craig Gordon.

The Northern Irishman claimed he had been informed by the match officials that he had thrown a punch - while that was clearly not the case, the midfielder's recklessness in raising his hands to Gordon was fatal to his team's hopes of completing a comeback.

Hearts had raced into an early lead through the outstanding Paul Hartley, who bundled home Roman Bednar's cut-back from close range. When Edgaras Jankauskas doubled the hosts' lead in the 49th minute the encounter appeared virtually over but Killen headed Shiels' corner past Gordon in offering hope to Hibs.

Shiels then won the penalty and converted it before the ugly goalmouth incident. Mikoliunas capitalised on Hibs' indiscipline, collecting a Neil McCann pass to shoot into the top corner 20 minutes from time.

Hearts have now picked up two vital victories in as many matches and they may just have regained the knack of winning when it counts.

Man of the match Paul Hartley (Hearts)

Taken from the Guardian/Observer