KEVIN & HELL
Nisbet worth his weight in goals but sorry Accies miles off pace despite late double
HIBS may be keen to splash the cash just now but big-money signing Kevin Nisbet is proving to be worth his weight in gold.
The £ 250,000 f orme r Dunfermline hitman made it six goals in eight appearances with a double in their win over Hamilton at Easter Road.
Paul Hanlon added a headed third goal, although it ended up being the winner rather than the icing on the cake as Accies staged an unlikely fightback thanks to Ross Callachan’s penalty and a Ryan Porteous own goal.
In truth it should have been a breeze for Hibs and would have been had Nisbet not been denied even more goals by Kyle Gourlay.
But if Ross does add even more quality to his squad over the next couple of days then his side could be a force to be reckoned with after an already impressive start to the campaign.
Kyle Magennis is set to be manager Jack Ross’ latest addition from his former club St Mirren, while Hibs reportedly had a £200,000 bid for Crewe midfielder Ryan Wintle knocked back.
Given the return on investment Nisbet has produced so far, club owner Ron Gordon could be tempted to hand his manager a blank cheque to get any remaining business done before Monday’s deadline.
But there are still things to work on. Letting Hamilton back into a game they were well out of almost proved costly, and the concession of a couple of needless penalties made life more difficult that it should have been.
Had the first one gone in, then we could have been looking at a much different outcome .
However, Ross’ team are making a habit of getting the job done whether they deserve all three points or not.
Most of the time they have done just that, and if they can maintain the consistency they have shown up until now, Hibs could see their speculate-to-accumulate approach rewarded with European football come the end of the season, if not silverware as well if the cup games go their way.
The home side made two changes to the side that lost 3-0 at Celtic Park last Sunday, Lewis
Stevenson replacing Josh Doig and Jamie Murphy coming in for Drey Wright.
Accies keeper Gourlay had to react swiftly after just three minutes to prevent an early opener. Joe Newell’s corner missed Porteous and landed unexpectedly at the feet of fellow central defender Paul Hanlon.
The Hibs skipper just managed to sort out his feet to get a clumsy effort on goal but it still needed Gourlay to show good reactions to keep it out.
However there was little the
Accies keeper could do to stop Nisbet firing Hibs into the lead after 19 minutes.
Martin Boyle was cynically hauled down in a dangerous position by Hamilton defender Hakeem Odoffin and Nisbet pinged the resulting free-kick across Gourlay and into the far bottom corner.
Boyle was inches away from finding the same corner, clipping a first-time effort just wide of the far post from Paul McGinn’s lay-off.
Nisbet did grab his second goal of the game 10 minutes before the break when his clever flicked header from Newell’s cross had too much pace on it for Gourlay and went in via the crossbar.
Accies were in danger of being blown away at this stage and only a point-blank save from Gourlay stopped Christian Doidge making it 3-0 almost immediately.
But Hamilton almost caused Ofir Marciano to dirty his gloves in first half stoppage time but David Templeton’s bending effort was waved wide of the far post by the Hibs No.1.
The Israeli did earn his wages after the break when he saved Marios Ogkmpoe’s spot-kick, although hopefully that’s out of his system ahead of next
week’s Hampden showdown when he will be facing the Scotland strikeforce.
Boyle’s speed took him to the byeline at the other end before cutting back for Nisbet, who stung Gourlay’s palms with a fierce strike.
Nisbet was denied his treble by Gourlay yet again when an instinctive left-foot snapshot was stopped by an equally reactive save.
The only surprise about the third when it did arrive was that it wasn’t Nisbet who scored it.
Melker Hallberg’s deep freekick was headed back across goal by Doidge, and Hanlon rose highest to nod home.
Gourlay probably should have done better to claim Doidge’s ’s header back across, and was s culpable for the first as well.
Doidge looked to have made it 4-0 when he met Boyle’s cross s with his head but Gourlay made e the save of the night to divert it up and over the bar.
The away side were handed d another chance from the spot ot when Kyle Munro was tripped by y Porteous, and Callachan showed d Ogkmpoe just how it should be e done by blasting high past helppless Marciano.
With six minutes to go Accies s suddenly made it interesting g when they forced Porteous to put through his own net, setting up a much nervier finish than they had any right to.