Hibs helped by Hearts, 'running out of games' warning and VAR farce - John Greechan's talking points
Red card controversy exposes refereeing weakness - and why Grant Hanley had to go
Thank goodness for the Hearts. Said no Hibs fan. Ever. And yet. Aye, and yet …
We’ve reached that stage of the season where strange bedfellows abound. Where even the oldest enmities can be put on hold, for five minutes or so, in the name of naked self-interest.
After a fairly maddening experienced in the Granite City, then, one or two travelling supporters might have been quietly – OK, very quietly – relieved to find that the home team had come back to win at Tynecastle, keeping Motherwell within striking distance of Hibs. With European qualification at stake, the battle for fourth place matters.
After a game where the performance of referee David Dickinson left many scratching their heads, not least in his interpretation of violent conduct, there was plenty for Hibs fans to mull over on the long journey back to the capital. Let’s dive right in.
Are Hibs running out of games?
The gap between fifth-placed Hibs and Motherwell stays at three points, with five games to play. Few would bet against the race for fourth place, with everything that carries, going all the way to that final-day showdown with the Steelmen at Easter Road.
David Gray, speaking after yesterday’s game, pointed out the bigger picture as he said: “Yeah, I think that's the big thing, and I've just reminded the players of that. I think it's difficult to take just now when emotions are high. Losing games of football is obviously never enjoyable.
“We haven't lost any ground because of the results that have went today, but we are a game down. So that is something else.
“It does become more difficult because we're running out of games effectively. But this is now the split, where you have everyone round about each other, everything to play for because of the results again today.
“So you look up the way, everything to play for at that end. Ourselves, Falkirk – obviously Falkirk go tomorrow - but Motherwell chasing this European place, and everybody plays everyone. So I think for a neutral, it keeps it exciting, keeps everybody well in the hunt for what they're trying to get to.”
Looking beyond the Scottish Cup semi-final break to that first post-split fixture, at home to Hearts, Gray added: “For ourselves, there's no better game to come back to than the one we're going to have now. A bit of a break obviously, with the semi-final weekend, to dust ourselves down from today, and make sure the players will be up for the next one - because I think that's the one that everyone will be looking forward to.”
The fleeting feeling of goodwill towards the Gorgie boys for inadvertently doing Hibs a favour? Gone in half a heartbeat. Replaced by a slow burn of a rivalry building up to Sunday week.
VAR isn’t the answer to all problems
How many replays did Dickinson need before deciding that Emmanueal Gyamfi had NOT smashed his arm into the back of Owen Elding’s head with force enough to merit a red card for violent conduct? Maybe he should have looked again. Possibly even asked video assistant referee Greg Aitken if he was missing something … again.
The match official, having overlooked Grant Hanley’s red-card offence in denying Toyosi Olusanya a clear goal scoring opportunity, was already having quite the afternoon when Gyamfi struck. Nowhere near playing the ball, making no attempt to do anything other than hit Elding, the Dons wingback’s challenge could be used as a textbook example of the sort of incident that SHOULD be punished with a straight red.
Aitken did his job. He can’t physically turn up at a game, stand beside the referee and point out the obvious. The VAR is not there to re-referee the game.
When the man in the middle is determined not to see something so obvious, well, that’s not a problem with technology. But with human error.
Hanley all at sea
The incident that led to Scotland World Cup hero Hanley being dismissed was just one big mess. Most of it down to the central defender’s own misreading of the situation.
Nobody at Hibs disputed the decision to red card a veteran who will now miss the Hearts game. Nor is there any need for Gray or his coaching staff to lambast the vastly experienced professional.
“I think it’s pretty self-explanatory,” said the manager. “I don't think it requires much of a, certainly not a dressing down from me in that situation. I think that's just one of these things that can happen in football.
“The disappointing thing is, I can't say it's ultimately cost us a game because there’s a lot of football still to be played. But it certainly makes it very difficult to play against a team like that for as long as we did with 10 men.”
Rocky Bushiri could probably consider himself unlucky not to start against Aberdeen, having missed the previous weekend while on extended World Cup duty. Thrown in after 18 minutes yesterday, he did just fine. And will likely need to be at his best, given the next fixture on the dance card.