JOLLY ROGERS’ JOLT FOR JASON
Bairns No 1’s wonder save from Cummings stops Hibs stealing a march on title rivals
OF all the business done during this transfer window, perhaps none will prove more valuable than Falkirk persuading Aberdeen to let Danny Rogers stay a Bairn.
If anyone doubted the value of the young goalkeeper, he provided a timely reminder of his worth yesterday.
Five minutes from time, with the score tied at 1-1 but Hibs pressing harder for a winner, Jason Cummings was put clean through on the home goal.
The ball bounced up perfectly for one of the most deadly strikers in the country, already the scorer of one goal on the day, and Cummings caught it more than cleanly enough with that trusted left boot.
Yet Rogers (below) was equal to the effort, reaching and clawing the ball away in a blur of motion that left the Hibs players — and their large travelling support gathered behind the goal — stunned.
Cummings, who had risen from his sick bed after missing the previous weekend’s Scottish Cup win at Raith Rovers, appeared genuinely dumbfounded by the miracle save.
Despite Hibs continuing to hammer away at the Falkirk goal in the closing moments, that was as close as they came to a victory that would have taken them above their hosts and back into second place in the Championship.
Peter Houston’s men retain that spot — but both lose ground on leaders Rangers — after a dogged display that, on balance, probably deserved a point.
They had taken the lead through Blair Alston four minutes into the second half and, until Cummings’ equaliser with just over 15 minutes left, the home side hadn’t looked overly troubled.
But the Hibs striker’s 17th goal of the season sparked something among the visitors, who left Falkirk disappointed not to have snatched victory at the very last.
Falkirk’s fans had rallied brilliantly to the club cause on the eve and morning of this match, turning up in numbers to shovel snow from the artificial pitch, car park and surrounding walkways. The hardy souls who had given up their Saturday night and Sunday morning just to ensure that the fixture went ahead deserved to be rewarded, surely, with a performance from their team.
The Bairns, boosted by the pregame announcement that striker John Baird had signed a new extended contract, did start to knock the ball around neatly enough early on — and they were the better of the two sides when it came to getting their full-backs forward to supplement the attack.
But both teams seemed caught in a pattern of popping passes around in little triangles, without ever really threatening to break the opposition line with a properly incisive move.
With imminent arrivals Anthony Stokes and Kevin Thomson watching from the main stand, there was an obvious impetus on the Hibs players currently in possession to make a point.
Yet Dominique Malonga, the striker most likely to make way for Stokes, started the game looking very much like a man who knows his tea is oot, if you’ll pardon the expression.
Eventually, even the simple passes began to go astray, with no sort of pattern emerging to the game and certainly no sort of entertainment on show for the paying spectators at that stage.
It says everything about the first half that the one real chance of any note, with fully 43 minutes gone, came from a move that was anything but pre-planned.
Falkirk’s Mark Kerr intercepted a Paul Hanlon clearance at halfway, sending the ball immediately back into the box low and hard, where Lee Miller’s step-over allowed Luke Leahy to collect — only for the full-back’s shot to be tipped over the bar. The Bairns maintained the momentum created by that sight on goal following the break, Miller forcing Hibs keeper Mark Oxley into a fine save within a minute of the restart — and Alston breaking the deadlock soon after.
Baird takes a great deal of the credit for his neat lay-off to Alston but it was the midfielder, making an intelligent supporting run into the box, who did the rest, brilliantly sidestepping his man and finishing calmly past Oxley.
Hibs had to respond but, apart from a strong John McGinn penalty shout under a Leahy challenge, they created little.
Until the introduction of Liam Henderson for the underwhelming James Keatings just before the hour mark, they appeared short of invention.
Henderson’s arrival brought a fresh impetus to the visitors, who began finding openings in the box — none better than the gap forced for the equaliser.
Darren McGregor took a fizzing pass from Dylan McGeouch in his stride and fired a low shot that even Rogers couldn’t hold, Cummings gleefully pouncing on the rebound.
Malonga and Cummings both sent headers over the bar from set pieces and, at one stage, Hibs saw three goal-bound efforts blocked in the space of about five seconds.
The temptation is to suggest that, with Stokes in the line-up, they might have buried one of those chances.
Closer to the truth is the fact that, with Rogers in this kind of form, any striker might have struggled to find a winner.
The Irishman confessed to having suffered terribly during his anguished wait for Aberdeen to make a call on his future during the week, admitting: ‘I was very anxious all week and on Monday I was absolutely terrible in training. My head was all over the place.
‘A few of the boys said to me: “Get home to bed.” It was only one day — I just needed to get my head straight.’
He certainly did that. As Cummings can testify.