‘Bigger than beating Invincibles’

BETTER than beating Celtic’s Invincibles. More important for a Hearts team who desperately needed to break the cycle of Hibernian derby dominance. It’s hard to overstate the importance of yesterday’s win to players who felt like they had been waiting a lot longer than nine games and three-and-a-half years to get the better of their great city rivals. Don Cowie, the man who scored the goal that ended the run, is in no doubt about what it all means. ‘Psychologically, this is probably even bigger than beating Celtic 4-0,’ declared the midfielder, the most spectacular of impact subs on the day. ‘No one expected us to beat Celtic that day and the manner in which we did saw a lot of people fob it off as an off day by Celtic. ‘There’s no getting away from that fact — they had an off day and we were very good. But to break this run of results against Hibs is massive and it’s something we need to use for the league games against them now. ‘It’s not all about just beating Hibs, though. It’s about keeping up that run that we’d been on prior to the winter break. ‘I think you see a Hearts team now with a lot of experience and a lot of really good young players. ‘We really fancy ourselves against anyone. You can see the confidence coming. ‘We need to start challenging (for trophies). We haven’t done that enough recently. That’s the plan come the end of the season. ‘I’m getting to the latter stages of my career and I want to finish with a medal. Nothing would be sweeter than making it a Scottish Cup one. ‘That was one of my reasons for coming to this club, to challenge for silverware.’ Asked if there had been a nervous wait before his goal was given, Cowie confessed: ‘It was an eternity! I should probably have scored with more authority, but, thankfully, it just managed to sneak in.’ On the Hibs side, the mood was obviously much darker — and more than a little defiant. Craig Levein’s ‘natural order’ jibe piqued the ire of more than just Neil Lennon, with defender Paul Hanlon pointing out: ‘We hadn’t lost in nine games — it spanned over a few years. So Hearts winning is hardly the natural order. It’s up to us now to go and start a similar kind of run all over again.’