Colin Calderwood's rebuilding job is an impressive work in progress, but side still short of killer instinct

Published on Sunday 3 April 2011 18:30

WHEN Hibernian were languishing near the foot of the table just a few months ago, it seemed scarcely conceivable that they would be able to put together a run of seven games without defeat.

The fact they have now done so is testament to how astutely Colin Calderwood has reshaped the squad since taking over as manager.

That he was nonetheless disappointed only to draw yesterday's Edinburgh derby was another indication of the progress his team has made - and an acknowledgement from the former Scotland defender that they let slip the chance to take all three points from Hearts.

"We should make sure we secure the victory, especially once we secure the goal," Calderwood said after the 2-2 draw at Easter Road, in which Hearts' Stephen Elliott scored the equaliser from a Craig Thomson free-kick just four minutes after Ricardo Vaz Te had put the home team 2-1 up. "The difficult thing was to score the goal and get ahead.

"If we'd survived the free-kick I think we would have found a way of winning the game and maybe scoring another, but we didn't. We'll serve our punishment for not doing our job.

"I'm happy enough with how we created chances and how we played in the second half, but we didn't get through the big moment," Calderwood continued. "We don't lack concentration, because we get ourselves organised, but at the big moment we didn't do our job.

"It was a great response by Hearts, but we had just lifted the place. We'd lifted the fans and given them everything to hope for, then we snatched it back off ourselves."

What made that late lapse more galling for the manager was the fact that, after playing second fiddle for the first half-hour, his team had steadily got on top of the game following the dismissal of Hearts captain Marius Zaliukas.

And, while the visiting team defended excellently at times, Hibs nonetheless had several gilt-edged chances to score more than the one goal they managed in the second half.

"We should have scored another goal, without a doubt," Calderwood added. "I thought the way we played in the second half was going to take us, and should have taken us, to a victory."

Vaz Te, who is short of match fitness after joining Hibs as a free agent, had come on at half-time and impressed with a few deft touches. He was just as disappointed that his goal had not been the winner, but he offered a more optimistic interpretation of the match than his manager had done.

"After the sending-off I thought we had them pretty much all through the game, really," the Portuguese striker said. "At the beginning I thought they were on top, then after our goal in the first half I thought we controlled the game all the way through. But we were really unlucky. I thought we deserved to win it, plus we created more chances than them."

Hibs' failure to make the most of those chances might be attributed to the tension of the occasion, but there was also a sense that they lacked confidence against Hearts, not just because they had not beaten their rivals for a while, but also because the five wins and a draw they had managed in their last half-dozen games were against clubs from their own half of the table, with the exception of a home victory against fifth-placed Kilmarnock.

In other words, while their progress is not illusory, it is perhaps less impressive than that sequence of results could suggest. They have toughened up a lot under Calderwood, but they still lack the killer instinct which Hearts showed when they needed it most. Or, as Vaz Te put it, inadvertently acknowledging Hearts' greater stature this season - one in which they are certain to finish above their city rivals: "Big teams - one mistake and they punish you."