Cowdenbeath 2 Hibs 3: A premier effort

Rugby reporter

Sunday 8 January 2012

The Cowdenbeath fans might have a second division team to support, but they have some premier league swearers in their ranks.

Leigh Griffiths, left, is first on hand to hail team-mate Eoin Doyle for scoring Hibs' second goal Photograph: SNS

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Alasdair Reid

And, to be frank, for much of this match the torrents of Anglo-Saxon they directed towards the visitors' dugout really were deserved. Hibs really were playing like a shower of, well, take your pick from the range of colourful possibilities.

At the finish, though, Hibs had the result their own followers craved and their players just about deserved. The Easter Road outfit were fast asleep at the start, conceding an astonishing first goal by Cowdenbeath striker Greig Stewart after just 15 seconds, and they were at sixes and sevens at the finish as Cowdenbeath harried their goalmouth, but they had enough composure in the middle part of the game to knock in three decent goals, and with a little more luck they might even had more.Pat Fenlon, the Hibs manager, looked a relieved man at the end, as well he might after claiming his first victory in six games since he took over in November. "We made it hard for ourselves in patches of the game," said Fenlon. "We should have been a bit more comfortable at half-time. Then, in the second half, we scored a good goal, but we dropped a bit and got a bit nervous."We knew it was going to be a tough game coming here. The conditions weren't great, but when you concede a goal after just a few seconds that rams it home for you. But I thought the players reacted well after that. People have doubted them and questioned their bottle and mentality, but I think they showed up. They stuck at it. It was always going to be difficult, but we showed a fair bit of character."As is the manner of things in these affairs, Colin Cameron, the Cowdenbeath player-manager, could probably take more satisfaction from the match, but he might kick himself today as he considers just how close his side came to pulling off a major shock. There might have been an element of fluke or good fortune in Stewart's first-minute goal, but their dominance towards the finish came down to the simple fact that they were playing better and more eager football than their opponents.Cameron said: "The boys deserve a lot of credit for not letting their heads go down at 3-1 and not feeling sorry for themselves. We pressed and pressed, but we just lacked that extra bit of quality inside the box."What it has given them is a gauge. They were playing against a Premier League team and I felt they more than matched them. Where we came up short was in the final details – set-pieces and finishing chances. That's what happens the higher you go. If you make mistakes you get punished, and we didn't punish Hibs when they made mistakes."Goodness knows Cowdenbeath certainly made Hibs feel horribly uncomfortable at times, especially when Marc McKenzie stretched them down the right flank and Jon Robertson produced a few moments of magic inside the box.Yet the Edinburgh side had a few highlights of their own. The best of them, unquestionably, arrived in the 18th minute, just as it seemed they were starting to find a rhythm after their horror start. Even so, nobody really expected what would happen next when Cameron lost possession in the middle of the park and the ball found its way to the feet of Leigh Griffiths 30 yards out, but he lined up his shot perfectly. The fierce wind might have helped a little, but there was no little skill in a looping strike that sent the ball dipping savagely in off the underside of the bar.Stewart's early goal had been a less spectacular effort, the striker taking a through ball from Cameron and shaking off the attentions of Sean O'Hanlon before hammering a low left-footer past Mark Brown. Yet by half-time Hibs were ahead on the scoreboard after new signing Eoin Doyle had knocked in their second goal.Hibs went 3-1 up when David Wotherspoon got his head to a drilled cross by Danny Galbraith in the 53rd minute. From that point on, though, they barely had a look-in, and the home side cut the gap when Robertson bamboozled O'Hanlon with his first touch then fired a shot past Flynn with his second.Robertson had a couple more chances, including a 90th-minute free kick that flew just wide from 25 yards. Cowdenbeath finished with pride intact, but it will be the Hibs name that goes into the hat for tomorrow's draw. A premier effort

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Cowdenbeath 2 Hibs 3: A premier effort

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