Hibs Fanzone

Published on Monday 9 November 2009 08:56

Steven Sanderson, Aberlady: "The alarm bells were ringing when the team was announced: no Zemmama, no Bamba and no Riordan. This knocked the confidence of the staunchest of Hibs fans as we realised that our main goal scorer was out along with the main creator and the main defender. It poses the question, why when we come here do we always have a depleted team?

"The first half was a bore as we relented possession time after time and also allowed them far too much time on the ball but they still couldn't do anything to trouble Stack. They got a lot of corners but Murray and Hogg dealt with them easily. The midfield due were second to the ball and this was maybe caused by Miller not being 100 per cent fit.

"The second half was better as we finally decided to take the game to Hearts – a great run by David Wotherspoon who forced a great save from the Hearts keeper and somehow he managed to turn the ball on to the inside of the post and then cleared it. This summed up our day and, at that point, a draw was always going to be the result.

"When Riordan eventually came on he gave us another angle of attack and he forced a couple of saves. The man of the match for me was Wotherspoon. He defended well and had one shot off the post. Murray and Hogg did everything that was asked of them.

"The referee didn't have too much to deal with and three cards were produced, which is an amazing stat in a derby game. He also did well not to give a penalty in the last minute which in reality was an excellent tackle by skipper Hogg.

Colin Sharp, Marchmont: "The game was turned in our favour when Derek Riordan was introduced after an hour and he went at the Hearts defence. He created a few good chances that on another day would have gone in. How bad was his injury to keep him out? He looked okay to most of the fans around me. Wotherspoon had a great run as he strolled through their defence and smashed a shot that was turned on to the post. This summed up their luck that it bounced back to the keeper. There were a few who were poor, with Rankin and Benji being almost invisible and Miller and McBride not as good as they usually are. Big Nish was isolated up front as Stokes was played far too far away from him on the right.

"The draw was an okay result. We remain on an unbeaten run and we are also the best team in the Capital, but it would have been so different if we had Bamba, Zemmama and Riordan on the park from the start as we really missed their quality.

"The good news is that all our injured players have two weeks to recover before we remount our challenge for the next third of the SPL at Paisley in two weeks' time.

"The referee was all right and he didn't fall for the dive at the end which some of him colleagues would have, so pass marks for him and pass marks for most of the team – but only just."