Hearts 1-0 Hibs: Instant reaction to Edinburgh derby and what it means for both sides

Edinburgh Evening News

Ben Banks reacts from the city as Hearts came out on top in the Edinburgh derby.

Transcript

00:00We're back in the car after the full-time whistle at Tynecastle in the first Edinburgh Derby of the season between Harts and Hibs.

00:08It finished 1-0 to the hosts at Tynecastle. A 91st minute winner from Craig Halkett was all the difference in the game.

00:18Carjota cross into the box, headed home by a Harts player.

00:23For all the recruitment the Jambos did over the summer from far-flung places,

00:27it's somebody who's been there through pretty much everything a football club can throw at him,

00:31who headed home to keep Harts' win and run going, three on the bounce,

00:37and it keeps him undefeated heading into the international break.

00:40And as the Harts fans were quite keen to remind everybody who wanted to listen at full-time,

00:44they are top of the league and they will not want to be moved.

00:47It was a game of very fine margins, a very bitty game then,

00:50where Derby's known for being so tight and it's certainly how it played out.

00:53Two teams that cancelled each other out, really.

00:55Harts have been really good going forward this season.

00:59Hibs has showed last week away at Celtic in a stalemate that they could also be really good defensively

01:03and they kind of just bounced off each other.

01:05The midfield never really got going in terms of passing and fluency down the flanks,

01:09was a bit congested.

01:11And Grant Hanley had a good game for Hibs,

01:13so that kind of nullified what Harts were trying to do in attack

01:16through Laurence Shanklin and Claudio Braga.

01:18So I always felt like it was going to be a moment of magic,

01:20an error or something like that that was going to settle this game.

01:23But it looked as if Martin Boyle had finally beaten an offside trap in the second half.

01:27He would race through and goal.

01:29Looked like Alexander Swallow got a touch to it to tip it onto the bar

01:31and that was such a huge moment in the game.

01:34Hibs were in the ascendancy, looked like the team more likely to score.

01:38And that being tipped onto the bar and then Stuart Finlay managing to hook it away

01:41kind of killed the vibe for them, kind of stopped them in their tracks.

01:44That was kind of all Hibs done in an attacking sense because of how congested it was.

01:49There were fouls in the game, but it wasn't like there was loads of corners

01:52or loads of throw-ins and that, so there was only three minutes of stoppage time.

01:55So when Halk had scored, that kind of felt it.

01:57It kind of felt that David Dickinson could have blown his full-time whistle at that point.

02:01But in the end, it's a big win for Harts.

02:05Everything that came before in the 90 minutes,

02:07there'd maybe been a bit of a debate on could there have been a bit more positive in the game

02:11and tried a bit more to break Hibs down with her attacking chances,

02:15but it all doesn't matter.

02:16It all washed away in that 91st-minute winner.

02:20A raucous atmosphere inside the ground.

02:23The 5.45 kick-off certainly won, I think, fans of both sides, even Hibs.

02:27As much as this was disappointing, the atmosphere was great from both sets of fans.

02:31So, yeah, not a particularly memorable 90 minutes of football,

02:38but certainly a memorable moment, I suppose.

02:41I would imagine Halk's header will be an Edinburgh Derby moment

02:44that's wheeled out by Harts for many a year now,

02:48and for them, they're in a great place heading into the international break.

02:52For Hibs, there's maybe a bit more soul-searching to do.

02:54They've yet to win in the league since the opening day away to Dundee.

02:57They had drawn five in the bounce before this.

02:58They've now lost.

02:59It did look like they were heading for another draw,

03:01but didn't ever necessarily look like outside that boil chance

03:04that they were going to head for a victory.

03:06They have had a tough run of fixtures.

03:08They've played both sides of the old firm away from home

03:10despite their struggles of late,

03:12but goals are coming harder to come by.

03:15They obviously started the season scoring goals,

03:17had that six-goal thriller with Dundee United,

03:20but that's them drawing a blank at Parkhead, at Ibrox,

03:23and now at Tencastle.

03:24It's something David Gray will be keen to fix

03:26after the international fortnight.

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