COOL CUSTOMER HARDIE BRINGS THE CHILL FACTOR
AMID a goal deluge that heaped icy misery on Hearts, it was quite fitting that an amber weather alert should be installed for the Lothians. ‘We are staying up’ chanted the Livingston fans on a bitterly cold night and, unlike the weathermen, their forecast seemed overly cautious.
With 28 points banked from their opening 18 games of the Premiership season, Gary Holt’s team already look safe and indeed sit just six points off the top of the table.
There were certainly signs in Friday night’s 5-0 rout of Hearts that, far from losing their early-season momentum, Livvy might actually get better as the season progresses.
The chief reason for that is the return to fitness of Ryan Hardie.
A key figure in the club’s charge towards the play-offs last term, the on-loan Rangers kid was forced to sit out the club’s promotion party through injury and then suffered a fresh setback after penning another loan deal to bring him back to Livingston over the summer.
Last weekend’s visit of St Mirren marked his first start of the season and he duly found the net. On Friday, he struck twice and might have claimed a hat-trick had a firsthalf shot not thudded back off a post and rolled along the goalline.
Full of running and fired by an instinct to ghost in behind, Hardie (right) provides the perfect foil to the physicality of Dolly Menga. Once the two clicked into gear on Friday, experienced international defenders like Aaron Hughes and Christophe Berra had no answer.
‘Ryan has been itching to get back,’ said captain Craig Halkett, who opened Friday’s scoring from the penalty spot. ‘From his initial injury, he has had another couple and been really unfortunate.
‘But now that he is back, he has showed what he does. As long as he is on the pitch, he will get you goals.
‘I’m delighted for him. He has been doing a lot of work with our physios and the physios back at Rangers. ‘He has been doing a lot of travelling to check in at both places and I’m pleased all that work is paying off for him.’ Livvy started the season with player/boss Kenny Miller ploughing a lone furrow up front, but now have Hardie and new signing Menga forming a lively partnership.
‘Ryan is like a new signing and we still have big Lee Miller and Rafa de Vita to come back too,’ added Halkett. ‘I don’t think those two are far away, so that will be another big lift for the squad.
‘We have good momentum and we want to keep that. We had a few bad results but bounced back well.’
Livingston’s remarkable campaign — following on the back of consecutive promotions — has been built on some remarkable home form.
Celtic, Rangers and Hibernian have also failed to win on what has quickly become the division’s least-popular venue for visiting teams, but a questionable artificial playing surface only goes so far towards explaining what happened to Hearts on Friday.
If there was plenty of self-harm evident in the performance of Craig Levein’s side, Livingston were, at times, a marvel to behold, simply for the relentless way in which they chased down the match and ruthlessly took their chances in the 14-minute period in which they scored all five goals.
If every tackle and header is contested at full force, there is no little skill about the way players like Hardie, Steven Lawless and the excellent Scott Pittman go about their business.
Halkett, too, is an imposingly steady anchor at the back but admits he would like to see the side learn to travel a bit better as the season moves into 2019.
‘We take great pride in our home record,’ said the 23-year-old. ‘All the boys were disappointed when we lost that one game to St Johnstone and since then we have bounced back perfectly.
‘We want teams to know that it’s going to be hard coming here. We need to work on our away from too, though, because we can’t just rely on the home form.’
Manager Holt insists the goal for his team remains to finish 10th, one spot above the play-off place.
Halkett agrees, saying: ‘I think all the boys have their feet on the ground. We know what the task in hand is. If we did get carried away, it would start to show in the performances, so it’s important to focus on our main goal.
‘Do that and then we can look further. After this December period, the league starts to take shape and you get an idea of where you might finish.’