Inverness CT 1 - 0 Hearts: Paulo Sergio doesn’t want excuses as Hearts’ run ends tamely

INVERNESS is only 100-odd miles from the Central Belt and has an almost identical climate, but for many teams it still seems to represent a scary trip into the wilderness.

Hearts became the latest club to succumb to this syndrome on Saturday, tamely surrendering their six-game unbeaten run.

The conditions were bad – the worst he had ever played in, according to Caley Thistle full-back Kenny Gillet – but they were the same for both teams. The difference lay in how they adapted to them, and Hearts manager Paulo Sergio was in no doubt that his players had not risen to the challenge.

“I think there was a problem with our mentality,” Sergio said. “It was like coming to Inverness was too hard, the weather wasn’t good, the pitch wasn’t good. I don’t want to hear excuses like that. I found Inverness more determined than us. We played for 20 minutes – they played for the rest of the game.”

It was significant that, at the end of those 20 minutes, Hearts striker Stephen Elliott was forced off with a hamstring injury. The Irishman had begun the game with his usual high work rate, and once he had gone none of his team-mates was able to have the same unsettling effect on the home defence. But Hearts’ run of five wins and a draw in their previous six matches had been down to collective team spirit and ability, not to the efforts of Elliott or any other individual. With the forward gone, perhaps only Andy Webster and Marian Kello showed the required commitment, and Caley Thistle grew in confidence the longer the game went on.

The match had been in doubt all the way up to 2.40pm, and was only given the green light after a third pitch inspection by referee George Salmond. After a tiring extra-time cup win at Dunfermline in midweek, Inverness could have been forgiven for hoping for a postponement, but manager Terry Butcher was intent on playing on.

“The gaffer said we love that type of weather,” Gillet said after his team had extended their own unbeaten run to six games. “We are used to playing in conditions like that, so we’re quite happy. Last year it was pretty bad at times, but that was really bad. I think straight away we could see Hearts didn’t really fancy it.”

Caley Thistle are now seven points clear of second-bottom Hibernian, but of more significance given their current form is the fact they are only a couple of points outside the top six. In a season which has seen every team struggle to find consis-tency, there is no reason why they should not set their sights on an upper-half finish.

Hearts remain third, on goal difference, and have a free weekend coming up before they are at home to St Johnstone in the cup. By then the transfer window will be closed and Sergio will know how many of his young players he must promote to the first team as replacements for departures. The Tynecastle club need to raise funds and are keen to sell two or three players, but even if they do, Sergio’s squad should still be strong enough to finish above Motherwell and St Johnstone, the teams level with them at present.

It may be a concern for the manager that at this time last year, the end of a long unbeaten run was succeeded by months of indifferent form, but the circumstances were different then and there is no reason why the same pattern should recur this season. The squad is better balanced, and provided they learn the lessons of this defeat they should be able to recover quickly.

Still, as Sergio said, there was no excuse for the lacklustre fashion in which his team played. They had been unbeaten in their last ten games against Caley Thistle, and might have extended that run to 11 had they been awarded a late penalty – although they have failed to score with their last four spot-kicks - but the manager himself thought that such a result would have been unjust.

“From where I was I saw a penalty and Templeton said he was touched,” Sergio said of an incident in which the Hearts winger went down after twisting round Josh Meekings. “The ref made a different decision. “But other than that I don’t think we did enough to take something from the game. Football is always fair: I’m not going to say it was unfair and we deserved to draw. I didn’t come here to draw. I came here to win but we didn’t do enough. The result and the performance were both disappointing.”

Templeton also thought a penalty should have been given, and Meekings did make contact, but Salmond was well placed to make his decision. The official, who ran the game judiciously and unfussily, was also in a good position to deny Caley Thistle a penalty earlier in the second-half when Jamie Hamill bent low to chest the ball back to Kello – with the help of an arm, the home crowd thought.

By that time Inverness had taken the lead when a deep cross from the left by Jonny Hayes was headed in by Shane Sutherland, and although they were under heavy pressure at times, they appeared as likely to add a second as Hearts did to equalise. They had had the ball in the net towards half-time, when Gillet thought he had shot home his first competitive senior goal, but the assistant referee’s flag was already up for offside.

Gillet, whose only previous goal had been for Barnet against Arsenal in a pre-season friendly, joked about an irate confrontation with the offender. “It was Nick Ross who was in an offside position, so we had a fight in the changing room after the game,” he said. “No, I asked him at half-time what he was doing and he just said he was trying to challenge for the ball, so that’s fair enough.”