Kilmarnock 1 - 3 Hibs: Spirited Hibs get up, stand up in their search for redemption

IF THE gravity of their situation was not enough of an incentive, Hibs have now turned to the tunes of Bob Marley to help shake them out of their relegation nightmare.

The Easter Road side won only their second SPL game in 16 but it was enough to give them a welcome advantage over their main rivals for the drop, Dunfermline. Now three points ahead, with a better goal difference and a game in hand, they showed some spirit to bounce back from the previous week, which had seen them concede nine goals in two fixtures.

Manager Pat Fenlon said he preferred to pick out the positives. There were none to be gleaned from the hammering they suffered at the hands of Celtic, who are now considered champions elect, but that wasn’t the case against Motherwell midweek. After his men had put together a well-merited win over Kilmarnock on Saturday, the Irishman said that the encouraging fact was that his men had now scored six goals in two games, both away from home.

Crucially, on Saturday they managed to get their three goals without leaking even more at the other end. It was enough to put a bounce in their step and although Kilmarnock did apply a modicum of pressure in the dying stages of the fixture, pulling one back late on, the goals had given them the belief to see out the remaining minutes.

There have been trying times for Hibs this season and even the hoped for cure for their ills has given them plenty to concern themselves with. Almost an entire team of signings were brought in throughout January, and while they look like they could now ensure the club’s survival in the SPL, they unifying process can’t have been easy.

“When you bring in new players it takes time for everyone to gel,” said Isaiah Osbourne, “but the relationship we have as a team makes it easy to get comfortable. As soon as I signed for Hibs I felt comfortable within a week or so. That’s just the way we are. We’re all just like one big family.

“Ivan Sproule helps bring the dressing room together. He’s lively at all times of the day. He’ll come in and start singing in the morning. He sings a bit of Bob Marley and ‘Jamming’ is his favourite. He’s pretty good to be fair. I like his performances and I’m a Bob Marley man myself.

“We had a bit of Bob playing in the changing room at Kilmarnock after the game. The good thing is that everyone knows Bob Marley. Pa (Kujabi) enjoys it a lot and while Claros doesn’t understand the words, I think he likes the beat. We were all ‘Jamming’ before and after the game – it was a bit of inspiration.”

But if the capital side were ‘Jamming’, their opponents were ‘Hurting Inside’. For the second time in a month, Kilmarnock were out done by the team nestled several places below them in the standings. When they were ousted from the Scottish Cup, manager Kenny Shiels cited a degree of misfortune, but on Saturday even he conceded Hibs deserved the victory.

They had made it easy for them to get off the mark, with Lee Johnson far too slack when he allowed Tom Soares to get onto a Leigh Griffiths ball and the Englishman punished Kilmarnock by slotting it low into the net on the angle in the 13th minute. Had the home side come back at them with any kind of intent Hibs may have suffered some jitters, but instead they failed to find their passing game and struggled to show any kind of penetration. As a consequence Hibs found their self-belief. Tighter at the back they were able to cope with missed chances when Griffiths failed to bury a couple of opportunities he was favourite to convert. Then, at the start the second half, a wonder strike from Roy O’Donovan saw them increase their lead. That was in the 47th minute. In the 66th minute all three points were secured, with Soares again finding the target and Griffiths the supplier.

“The result wasn’t a surprise with the way we’ve been playing in the last few weeks. We’ve been playing well to be honest, although the result against Celtic was a bad one,” said Osbourne. “We thought we should have beaten Motherwell in midweek but it was just bad mistakes which cost us again It was down to us to make sure we did things right at the back – and we did that.”

For Kilmarnock, though, it was a bad afternoon at the office. A week earlier they had been bettering Rangers at Ibrox, but despite Dean Shiels’ 83rd-minute free-kick which zipped past Graham Stack, they never looked like claiming the three points for the second Saturday in succession.

“I don’t know what happened,” said defender Mo Sissoko. “When we play against the leading teams the players are more motivated but we’ve been really bad in the last two games. We have to work harder on that side of it. “I think it’s to do with the mentality. When you are focused, you try to play better and now we have five or six games before the split and we have to bounce back from this.”

The manager said there could now be questions asked about his squad’s strength of character, and they will have to find some positive answers soon. Top six is the target, especially as Rangers’ problems mean that the other five teams in that half of the table could be looking forward to European football next term.

There is also the small matter of a trophy to play for in a few weeks, when they meet Celtic in the League Cup final. Shiels said: “Every player is thinking about the cup final but we have two or three games before that and we must focus on them because if we think of Hampden too early then it will be bad for our top-six chances. To win the final would be great for the fans but top six is important too. We have to concentrate more in training and then on the pitch because if we play like we did on Saturday against Cetlic we’ll lose.”