WE’VE LET OUR RUN GO TOO EASILY
PAUL HANLON reckons Hibs let themselves down on a day when they should have done more to stop Hearts from loosening their derby stranglehold.
The Hibees skipper was frustrated that they fell just short of stretching their three-and-a-half year unbeaten run over their city rivals to 10 games.
And that it cost them their place in the Scottish Cup where they’ve enjoyed plenty of success over the past couple of seasons only made it sting more.
Hanlon said: “We’d been on a good run in the derby and done well in the Cup in previous seasons, so it’s disappointing to go out.
“And it’s the manner of the defeat that disappoints as well. We didn’t do ourselves justice on the day.
“The fight was there, which you would expect in a derby, but when we had time to get the ball down and play, we never did it.
“We rushed things, panicked a bit in possession. In these games, that’s the easy thing to do.
“The hard thing is to compose yourself and to pick a pass.
“Too often we panicked and maybe took the easy option by putting it down the line, helping it on instead of showing composure on the ball.
“It’s not ideal, that pitch, but you have to adapt, change your game to what suits the pitch – or play your game plan on it. We didn’t deal with it today.
“The goal comes from a set-piece but there weren’t loads of corners in the game.
“It was a scrappy goal to win a scrappy game, to be honest.”
While Hanlon will be able to relate to the elation that Hearts will be feeling, he backed up his boss Neil Lennon in condemning Craig Levein’s cheeky comment about “restoring the natural order” of having Hearts on top in the capital.
He added: “I think, as the gaffer said, we’re pretty evenly matched.
“We definitely don’t go into games thinking we’re going to lose, that’s for sure.
“In terms of the run we’d been on, we hadn’t lost in nine games over three years. So Hearts winning is hardly the natural order, to be honest.
“It’s been good to be on this unbeaten run in the derby. But Hibs and Hearts come up against each other a lot, so it was going to be broken at some stage.
“I’m just disappointed it was today. We just have to pick ourselves up and, in terms of the derby, start another run.”