hearts 2
dunfermline 0
FOR any striker not to score until the third last game of the season may appear to be an unmitigated disaster but Andy Kirk has a good enough excuse. The Northern Ireland internationalist has spent most of this season on the treatment table after three separate serious injuries which has made this campaign the worst of his short career.
An Achilles injury followed by an ankle knock, then a back problem has meant that the man who signed for Hearts for (pounds) 100,000 three years ago has not had a real chance to show his worth this season.
He has started only four games and although he has been on the bench nine times he now appears to have returned to a reasonable level of fitness.
''It's good to score my first goal of the season, albeit so late in the campaign,'' said Kirk, who symbolically made a bee-line to Hearts physio Alan Rae when he scored against Dunfermline.
''Three times I have had to come back from injury and it would be good to end the worst season of my life on a high.''
Certainly the importance of keeping Kirk, and for that matter his young striking colleague, Gary Wales, fit and able to play cannot be underestimated. At the end of the season the club will lose striker Stephane Adam and insiders have suggested their interest is cooling regarding on-loan striker Ricardo Fuller, who hasn't scored since January 5, when he netted twice in a Scottish Cup tie against Ross County.
If both were to leave, along with Thomas Flogel, who has already signed for Austria Vienna and who played up front on Saturday, it would leave Craig Levein hoping, that Kirk and Wales would be good enough to be his first-choice strike-force.
As for this campaign, Hearts may have a chance of still beating Livingston for the automatic UEFA Cup spot, but such a scenario looks unlikely. Their next match is at home against Celtic next Sunday, which they have to win, and Livingston would be beyond recall in any case if they beat Dunfermline at Almondvale the previous day.
Ironically, last season, Adam was furious that Celtic fielded a weakened team against Kilmarnock, which allowed the Rugby Park team to beat Martin O'Neill's side and deprive the Tynecastle club of a European place.
This time round, the Frenchman will be hoping the Parkhead club don't want to push things too much the week before the Scottish Cup final against Rangers.
It has been Hearts' inconsistent home form, which includes defeats against Dundee United and St Johnstone, which has meant they are now left to try to qualify for Europe the hard way. Indeed against Dunfermline they did their best to throw the game away once again.
After a drab first-half, Hearts took the lead on the hour mark when an inch-perfect free kick from Stevie Fulton was met by Kevin McKenna, who beat Marco Ruitenbeek. With 13 minutes left Alan Maybury gave away a penalty when he fouled Colin Nish. It seemed a perfect opportunity for Scott Thomson to cap a good performance, but Antti Niemi made a magnificent save.
It was a Thomson error two minutes later in allowing Fuller away from him which led to Kirk's strike.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article