Missing Edinbugh derby 'will cause Hibs' Ryan Porteous to reflect on red card'

Paul Hanlon tips defender to bounce back
Ryan Porteous receives redRyan Porteous receives red
Ryan Porteous receives red

Paul Hanlon believes missing out on huge games such as the Boxing Day derby with Hearts will help Ryan Porteous mend his ways after the young Hibs defender saw red for the second time this season.

The Scotland Under-20 player was sent off for a bad tackle on Rangers’ Borna Barisic during the 3-0 defeat by the Ibrox club, an incident which sparked a touchline spat which resulted in Hibs assistant head coach John Potter and the Govan club’s technical coach Tom Culshaw both being sent to the stand.

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Porteous was also shown a straight red during Hibs’ Betfred Cup quarter-final clash with Kilmarnock earlier in the season for a poor challenge on Liam Millar which resulted in him being suspended for the semi-final against Celtic at Hampden.

The 20-year-old will now be missing for the second Edinburgh derby of the season at Tynecastle on Thursday after being hit with another two-match ban.

But while admitting Porteous will be a huge loss for Hibs, Hanlon insisted no-one will feel the pain more than the youngster himself.

“He is a young boy, aggressive, whole-hearted defender and he is obviously desperate to do well for the club. It’s one of those ones, he’ll learn from it. The biggest disappointment is, not in terms of this game because it didn’t affect it, but in terms of games coming up he’s going to miss the big games for us. He’s a young boy and has played a lot of big games already but they are the ones you show what you are made of.”

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Hanlon has only been sent off once in more than 400 matches for Hibs – handling the ball on the line in a game against Inverness Caley nine years ago – and the 29-year-old revealed he’ll be offering Porteous a few words of advice.

“I spoke to him and said in this day and age you can’t really tackle like that, it gives the referee a chance to show the

cards.

“I’m sure through time and experience he will know when it’s right to kind of leave a bit on strikers and when to make the more aggressive tackles and when not to.

“It’s not something you want to take out his game completely because he’ll need that to kick on in his career.”

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Porteous’ dismissal resulted in Ross replacing midfield playmaker Scott Allan with Darren McGregor, the 34-year-old making his first appearance since suffering an abdominal injury in mid-August.

Agreeing his return was timely, Hanlon said: “Daz has worked hard in the gym to get himself back fit. I’ve had problems in that area as well and there are lots of grey areas. He has had to persevere in the gym and work really hard.

“All credit to him for his mental strength and resilience. He will be back in top condition, good to see him back around the squad.”

A blunder by goalkeeper Ofir Marciano gifted Ryan Kent Ranger’s opener with Joe Aribo taking advantage of more poor defending by Hibs to double their lead, the game effectively killed off with only eight minutes on the clock.

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Hanlon, however, insisted he and his team-mates never gave up hope although a third from Jermain Defoe minutes before Porteous was sent off made the final result a formality.

He said: “It was a bad start to the game, it put us on the back foot right away. I think obviously we have to react better to conceding the goal and maybe kill the game a bit.

“I think we started, got a wee bit pressure first couple of minutes and then conceding the goal it was if we thought we could just go into playing football, but I think we had to kill the game a bit for five or ten minutes and settle ourselves. Obviously that never happened by conceding the second goal and that made it a difficult night for us.

“You don’t give up hope, at any time you can nick a goal and it can all change but against a team like that 2-0 down in that short space of time it’s going to be a difficult night.”