Paulo Sergio hails ‘sweat and blood’

IT TOOK blood, sweat and a bit of bold positional tinkering to get Hearts through to the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup according to their manager Paulo Sergio. But as far as his opposite number was concerned it was a poor piece of refereeing which proved decisive.

Bemoaning the Hearts equaliser in the dying seconds of the match, when Suso Santana won a penalty, Steve Lomas said the officials had been conned. “Ten seconds from the end, that’s a massive call from him. Hearts will probably say they think it was a penalty but I’ve seen it again and it was very, very soft. The boy chops it inside and loses control of the ball and just falls against Alan Maybury. The ball goes about six yards from him but he sees Maybs and falls against him.”

Believing the game was over after Murray Davidson had netted in the 83rd minute, Lomas said he had been happy with his team’s performance. “But you need a bit of luck in the cup and we didn’t get it,” he added. “I don’t want to criticise the referee because you get in trouble but I don’t know what the ref expects him to do, the guy just falls into him.”

Sergio was more concerned with the extra-time winner. With Marius Zaliukas utilised as a makeshift striker in a bid to seal the deal before penalties, the captain repaid him with a winner three minutes from full time. “Playing him as a striker, I always believed something could happen. The game was not over. I think it was well deserved. There was a lot of sweat and blood on the pitch.”

But Sergio acknowledged that it had been tough. “Both games have been tight but we tried something different. It wasn’t beautiful but the important thing was we won.”