The TV broadcasters should hang their heads in shame at failing to stick this on the box. Heck, this Battle of Tynecastle should have been shown on pay-per-view on the boxing channels or the big screen at the Showcase.
We knew we had a fight for fourth. We didn’t know these two would take it so literally. This was 106 minutes of eye-watering drama – and then a massive barney at the end to top it off. You know you are dealing with a mad afternoon when there’s a 30 man Royal Rumble, punches being lobbed and even a flying hot water bottle being thrown like a grenade. It’s just a shame there wasn’t a wider audience to revel in the nonsense. Their loss.
Hearts hung on for a point and to fourth spot in the end. Hibs lost out and then lost the plot. The Jambos had to do so with 10 men after Alex Cochrane’s first half VAR triggered red card which helped Hibs ace Kevin Nisbet cancel out Yutaro Uda’s sweet opener.
Hibs hurled the kitchen sink at their rivals in a bid to leapfrog them on the table but a lack of a cutting edge and some heroics from keeper Zander Clark secured top dog status in the capital. The rammy at the end – sparked by boss Lee Johnson's shove on Naismith – only cranked up the drama another notch.
It was a wild afternoon but another piece of evidence Naismith can put forward to the Gorgie board in his case for landing the manager’s gig on a permanent basis. He can point to the fighting spirit his side showed out there – during and after the game.
“It wasn’t that enjoyable,” Naismith joked. “It was longest game ever!”
But he was thrilled with the dig in his group. Naismith said: “The fight the boys have got is unbelievable, the understanding they’ve got of the game when we go to ten men, I think it was similar to the Celtic game.
“We managed to defend for our lives and we managed the game really well. It was really pleasing on the character side of things.
“Hearts teams in the past have been labelled with being soft, don’t have enough fight and I’ve been part of some of those teams. St Mirren away, character to come back, today - to see the game out.
“To go to Rangers and go for 96 minutes to get a result, when I was a player here these things very rarely happened. That part is turning but if you want to play here you need to have that.”
Naismith had to earn his stripes after going down to 10. By that stage Uda had pounced on a poor clearance to tuck in the bottom corner, but the game hinged on the big call.
Ref Don Robertson initially awarded a penalty when Cochrane hauled Nisbet down and flashed a yellow card. But VAR showed the offence was just outside the box – and also merited a red. Hearts might have preferred the spot kick as Nisbet whipped the free kick into the bottom corner.
It was one way traffic the rest of the day as Clark brilliantly denied Paul Hanlon either side of half time, while the post halted Will Fish and a few more chances went begging as Hibs fell just short.
Hearts seemed to have third sewn up a few months ago but Naismith will accept fourth given the confidence zapped side he took over from Robbie Neilson. He said: “For my seven games I think it's a success. For where Hearts want to be year on year, we need to compete for third and be in Europe and competing against the best teams in the league, and we need to be competing for silverware.
“I mean competing consistently and we do need to win one and we need to get third place and we need to become a better team, and a bigger club and a better club. That's the main drive.”
Naismith will now hold talks about taking the job on. He said: “I would say that I'm ready for management. Every manager I’ve spoken to has said that if you could coach for another 10 years you will never know when you're ready but what this has done is give me a taste of it and I know I'm ready and I think I've shown that.
“These are the five hardest games of the season and you are getting them at a time where the squad is really low and I'm proud of what we've done. “Conversations will now start to see if i'm the man to take Hearts forward or not.”
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