Hearts hit Hibs for four at Easter Road as contrasting emotions on both sides after convincing SWPL scoreline
Hearts and Hibs came to blows at Easter Road on Friday - and it was all but game over at half-time
Hibs boss Grant Scott says his Hibs Women side will not be defined by a heavy derby defeat - as Eva Olid’s Hearts laps up the joy of a 4-0 victory she’ll never forget.
The game played out at Easter Road, with both sides enjoying good starts to the SWPL season, Hibs taking 13 points from their opening 15 available and Hearts had 12 heading into this encounter. But the derby was over as a contest in a matter of 33 minutes.
First Elidh Shore scored an impressive effort from 25 yards after 22 minutes and eight minutes later, Georgia Timms had doubled the lead. Monica Forsyth then added a third at the back post three minutes after that in an 11-minute spell that took the game away from Hibs and handed three points to Hearts.
Scott’s side did rally early in the second 45 but the away side stood tall and found a fourth late on through Jackie Richards. Olid was delighted with her side. She told Hearts TV: “You can imagine, so happy. I said to the players that I remember my first derby here three years ago with such a young squad. We lost 3-0 and today we win here 4-0, it is so difficult coming here. So happy.
“Previous years, mentally, they were stronger than us playing in the stadiums. It was important we showed that mentally we are stronger than before, that we are ready to play in the stadiums, play our style of play and it doesn’t matter where we are. That is what we have to do.
“I think we won because the first half we were faithful to our style of play. We play nice football, it’s how we have to play always, doesn’t matter who is the opponent and where we are. I enjoyed the first half so much as we were ourselves, second half they were better the first 20 minutes, we needed time to fix what was happening.
“We need to react faster in those situations but it’s learning we have to do. I am so proud of the team and I hope we can play this nice football in all our matches. It’s a night I’ll never forget.”
Scott meanwhile insisted that his side ultimately didn’t show the best versions of themselves. He said to Hibs TV: "It will take a while to digest properly and fully. Very, very disappointed.
"We need to reflect and look at where we got that one wrong so we can bounce back as best we can. It’s a difficult one in this moment to explain through. I think there were many factors. But we’ve let ourselves down as a full group. We will get back on it next week and do better.
"We got on front foot a lot earlier in the second half. We applied a lot of pressure to Hearts. They buckled a couple of times and we had a few opportunities that, if we are honest with ourselves, we should do better with.
"Our plan was to be on the front foot from the first kick and we failed to do that tonight. It was a good reaction at 3-0 down but you’ve already gave yourself a mountain to climb.
"This is definitely not going to define us. We are a good football side, we’ve just not played well. Some days that happens. You can get team selection and tactics wrong, and we will look into that, but sometimes there is no rationale. You can have an off day, we are human beings at the end of the day. It’s not going to derail us, that’s the most important part. We need to bounce back. It was just very disappointing.”