Fenlon claims Hibs deserved good fortune after putting in ‘hard shift’

HIBERNIAN manager Pat Fenlon was the calmest man at Fir Park last night at the end of a frenzied match which saw his team beat Motherwell 4-0 to go second top of the table. Hibs were awarded two penalties, neither arguably deserved, while Motherwell manager Stuart McCall also had cause to complain about a disallowed goal for his team in the first half when they were just a goal down.

But Fenlon refused to be drawn into any controversies about the decisions made by referee Stevie O’Reilly, whose involvement ended early after he picked up a calf strain, or by nearside assistant referee Francis Andrews, who was involved in the disallowed goal and the two Hibs penalties. Instead, the Hibs boss praised the character of his side, whose performance from back to front was a considerable improvement on their 3-2 defeat at Ross County last week.

“The first goal was fantastic,” Fenlon said of the David Wotherspoon strike which opened the scoring. “I’m pleased we’ve come here and won the game. If we’ve got some decisions tonight, that’s great – we don’t always get them. We’ve worked hard enough to get something out of the game. It’s a massive three points for us. We were rock solid and looked a decent side.

“It’s a difficult place to come to, specially on the back of getting beaten last week. People questioned our defensive capabilities, and I thought tonight we stood up to be counted.” Asked if he was concerned that O’Reilly’s debatable decisions might overshadow his own team’s performance, Fenlon suggested that Hibs generally tended to be undervalued. “We don’t seem to get too much credit, so that doesn’t concern me. I’ve told them in there what it’s about tonight, and I’m delighted with them. The players know that tonight they’ve come away and put in a real hard shift. Yes, we got a little bit of luck, which we deserved, I think. They deserve tremendous credit from me, which they got after the game.” The manager had particular praise for midfielder Tom Taiwo, the stand-in for the injured Gary Deegan. “People wrote last week that he [Taiwo] was non-existent and they didn’t see him on the pitch, and he’s played one game in a long time. I think you saw tonight he’s a decent player for us. He’ll be a capable replacement for Gary at the moment.” McCall was understandably aggrieved at some of the decisions that went against his side, but also accepted that his players had been the agents of their own undoing with several missed chances. “Everything that could go against us did,” he said.

“In the first half we created umpteen chances and obviously scored a goal that’s a foot and a half over the line,” McCall said of the Stevie Hammell header which Hibs keeper Ben Williams was ruled to have saved before it fully crossed the line. “But the linesman is still adamant that it didn’t go over.” 
McCall said he had not seen footage of the first Hibs penalty, awarded when Darren Randolph made contact with Leigh Griffiths, but said the visitors’ second had been given in error. “We get a penalty then miss it, then they get a penalty from a foul which is a yard outside the box.

“The fourth goal is an embarrassment, but the game’s gone by then. Key moments in the game went against us, but there’s not a lot you can do about it. Take the decisions away and we didn’t make the most of the opportunities we created.” Griffiths suggested the first of the two penalties he scored should not have been given. “I wasn’t looking for the penalty,” the striker said. “I thought the boy [Randolph] did well to run it out of play.”