Accies 0 Hibernian 2: Saturday, 3 April 1999

By George Grandison

Having approached the game at Firhill with more than a little trepidation given the respective league positions of the teams, it turned out to be not as bad as I had feared. Although Accies still lost and failed to score again, the performance was better and there were some positive things to take from the match.

As expected, Hibs started the match pushing forward at every opportunity and with Accies new look defence looking like they'd just been introduced to one another at half past two, things didn't exactly look promising. Hibs were restricted to longish range efforts which McFarlane was able to deal with fairly comfortably. After their shaky start the defence began to get their act together and the rest tried to push forward when they had the ball, although to little effect. At least Colin Miller was more positive than in the Ayr match and had Nicky Henderson playing up front with Gary Wales.

Hibs almost took the lead in 27 minutes when a long ball was headed on to Paatelainen. He was clearly a couple of yards offside (trust me, I was almost directly in line) but the ref's assistant was dozing and failed to flag. Big Mixu didn't hang about to check, took a couple of steps into the box and hammered a left foot shot past McFarlane. Luckily for Accies the shot hit the inside of the post and spun across the empty six yard box to safety. Five minutes later and the skillful Latapy was given too much space to run through the Accies half and struck a sweet shot into the bottom corner from just outside the box, giving McFarlane no chance.

Rather than starting a flood of chances for Hibs, though, Accies reacted well to the loss and within two minutes nearly equalised - a deep cross from the left found new signing Alan Kerr at the back post and his downward header was brilliantly saved by Gottskalksson. Soon after, Accies had what looked to be a fair shout for a penalty when Gary Wales was sent tumbling in the corner of the box but referee Rowbotham took the easy option of awarding a corner. McFarlane then had a good save before Accies came close again on the stroke of half time - another deep Darren Henderson cross caused problems for the Hibs defence and the ball broke to Steven Thomson. His shot from a tight angle appeared to beat the keeper but was scrambled away by a couple of defenders with no Accies men able to take advantage.

Within sixty seconds of the restart Accies came close once more, this time neat passing down the right between Thomson, Kerr and Renicks gave some space to the latter and he managed to fight his way into the box and fire in a powerful shot only for Gottskalksson to produce another great save. Five minutes later though and the game was all but finished. Ross McLaren misjudged a challenge on Paatelainen in his own half and the burly Finn made for goal before slipping a pass through to Latapy. He neatly sidestepped a desperate challenge from Cunnington before firing the ball past the helpless McFarlane. To their credit Accies kept plugging away but the next chance came at the wrong end again. On 57 minutes, Neil Oliver appeared to play the ball behind when tackling Stevie Crawford but this time Rowbotham gave the penalty. Much to the delight of the huge Hibs support, the ball was handed to Latapy to complete his hat-trick but he chose to shoot straight and although McFarlane dived, he blocked the penalty with his legs. Thereafter the game pretty well petered out; Hibs were content to allow Accies possession outside the penalty area and Accies, although continuing to try hard, were unable to create much, the best chance falling to Thomson who skied his shot high over the bar from about 15 yards.

The Hibs fans were busy celebrating the championship thanks to Falkirk losing at Morton and having at good laugh at the announcer's reminders that no-one would be allowed onto the pitch at full time : "there will not be a pitch invasion at the end of the game" he insisted. Nice try but wrong I'm afraid as a fair number managed to evade the cordon of stewards and ran on to celebrate. Accies fans meanwhile could only laugh at Marko Rajamaki's efforts at finding a team mate with one of his passes - eventually he did so, to rapturous applause!

On the plus side, Neil Oliver looked pretty steady at the back and Steven Thomson looked much more comfortable back in midfield where he probably belongs, helping out in defence but also getting forward a fair bit too. Nick Henderson also looked better in his former position up front and had a few nice touches of skill. However with Raith getting a last minute winner against Stranraer any improvement in form looks like being too late now.

Accies line up: I McFarlane, Renicks, Cunnington, Oliver, McLaren, Thomson, Kerr (sub. Rajamaki 59), McAulay (sub. McKenzie 75), Wales, N Henderson, D Henderson (sub. Moore 85).

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