Cathro looks for clues to reversal of fortune

IAN CATHRO has rummaged around the rubble of the Hearts cave-in that helped Hibernian on the way to glory in last year’s Scottish Cup.

The head coach burned the midnight oil last week to watch how the tie turned so badly against a Hearts side that was 2-0 up at half-time at this stage of the tournament.

Jason Cummings and Paul Hanlon scored late to leave Tynecastle with a draw that day, then Hibs edged the replay 1-0 at Easter Road.

A radically different Hearts might feature only three of the starters that coughed up that two-goal advantage — Arnaud Djoum, Sam Nicholson and Prince Buaben.

However, Cathro was still intent on examining the entire footage of both derby games from last season in case clues were thrown up that could aid his game plan for today.

‘Sometimes you know the game is starting to go in another way,’ said Cathro. ‘So you’re looking for what might be feeding into that, what might be the problems.

‘What are the first couple of dominoes in there? Often it is not the goal, it’s often something maybe five minutes before that or somebody starts to do something differently.

‘Or somebody’s mentality changes. Or someone who’d been going forward to press is maybe thinking they will just wait. A lot of knock-on effects can be building up.

‘That’s what I was watching for. I wanted to get a feel for the game and for some of the players who are still with us.’

The selection changes one year on will chiefly be down to Cathro’s recent rash of January window captures who have starred in emphatic victories over Rangers and Motherwell.

Eight of them — Alex Tziolis, Andraz Struna, Malaury Martin, Esmael Goncalves, Tasos Avlonitis, Lennard Sowah, Aaron Hughes and on-loan Stoke City winger Moha — featured at Fir Park.

Cathro is content to throw them a jersey for derby day, saying: ‘I feel more comfortable going into Sunday with the group we’ve got now. We had to bring in men.

‘We’ve brought in good people as well as good players.

‘We wanted guys with experiences of positives and negatives in life, guys who have lived through enough situations of this nature.

‘One of the skills is controlling your decisions in that environment.

‘That is why having players with experience in these types of games is a valuable thing.’