Maroon memories: Nervous Hearts hold out

Dunfermline's spirited second-half recovery at Tynecastle offered fans a brief but ultimately extinguished glimmer of hope that the Fifers might save their First Division place. Their fightback was achieved with ten men and in spite of looking down and out after twice being two goals behind.

Hearts' teenage striker, John Robertson, completed his third hat-trick in recent weeks inside the first hour but second-half goals from McCathie and Morrison plus an own goal from Hearts' full-back Guild earned Dunfermline an unexpected point.

This was the fourth game running Hearts failed to win, but to their relief, the other promotion candidates dropped points as well. The Edinburgh side were left needing two points from their last two fixtures to be sure of returning to the Premier Division.

After the match manager Alex MacDonald said there were no excuses for Hearts' failure to win. "The players simply could not cope with the pressure," he said.

"They lost their nerve when it mattered. Everything had gone fine for an hour. We were two up, the fans were behind us and we let them down by giving away three goals through bad defensive errors. I was shocked at our second-half display."

Dunfermline were left less than pleased with referee Edgar Brolis, who sent off the Fife full-back Terry Wilson and booked two other visitors, Gavin Tait and Stephen Morrison.

Dunfermline left Tynecastle convinced that all three Hearts goals were offside. Indeed they had a legitimate grievance about Robertson's second goal - he looked at least a yard offside when he collected Bowman's pass.

There was controversy too over Robertson's third, scored when the stand-side linesman's flag was up.

But after Hearts protested, the referee consulted his colleagues and awarded the goal, which led to bitter and furious protests from the Fifers, with Wilson taking an early bath.