Hibs boss backs Riordan despite penalty misses

John Hughes today insisted Derek Riordan will have his full backing if he seeks to take Hibs' next penalty kick despite the Easter Road striker missing his last three from the spot.

Riordan passed up a glorious opportunity to seal all three points against Inverness Caledonian Thistle on Saturday when, having opened the scoring after just eight minutes, he was tripped by former Hibs defender David Proctor.

But, to his horror, his spot-kick crashed off Caley goalkeeper Ryan Esson's left-hand post, leaving Thistle striker Adam Rooney to show him how to do it as he stepped up to beat Mark Brown from 12 yards following Steven Thicot's badly-timed tackle on Danni Sanchez to salvage a point for Terry Butcher's men.

Riordan's latest miss from the spot comes on the back of two failures from last season in the space of only a few days, the Hibs star failing to convert against both Hamilton and then St Johnstone.

Abdessalam Benjelloun and Anthony Stokes then took over although the Moroccan hitman was also guilty of a miss against Kilmarnock, his blushes spared by a trademark free-kick from Riordan.

Today, however, Hughes insisted he had full faith in Riordan, who had been revelling in a more central role up-front, saying: "The next one is his if he wants it. He made the penalty against Caley and was brave enough to grab the ball.

"Derek practises penalties and free-kicks in training every day, he does take a good penalty kick but he was unfortunate on the day. I felt for him because I thought he was outstanding; clever enough to drop into areas which make it hard for the opposition to pick him up where he could play his passes.

"It was just another instance of Lady Luck appearing to desert us at the moment, Darryl Duffy's broken foot, the miss Edwin de Graaf had against Caley and then Derek's penalty.

"But there's nothing you can do but take it on the chin and get on with it."