Once a Jambo always a Jambo it seems, so the relish shown by Christian Nade will only have exacerbated the pain for home supporters at Easter Road yesterday after the big Frenchman scored the goal that spoiled Hibernian's week.
These may have been the first points Raith have dropped away from home this season, but having fallen behind to the team that beat Rangers at Ibrox on Monday, maintaining their unbeaten road record was still a fine achievement.
"I was waiting for that for a long time," Nade said afterwards, grinning toothily. Four years have passed since he left Tynecastle, but he scored in a couple of Edinburgh derby matches and the grudge was evident in the reception he received in Leith, while he came up with the perfect sportsman's response..
"I actually like the abuse they give me," Nade added. "I would have felt bad if they hadn't done that. I hope they will do it the next time we play as well. I have nothing to prove to Hibs fans. I just want to show I can score against them whenever I want to."
His goal was well taken and he had done much of the work to earn it, taking the ball into the box then back-heeling it to Ryan Conroy who managed to get the ball back to him under pressure to let the striker pick his spot. The strike was sweet and the moment sweeter since he had been on his best behaviour up to that point in anticipation of the celebration.
Nade explained: "I tried to stay calm the whole game so I wouldn't get booked before that because I knew I would score."
Hibs got what they deserved for relinquishing the initiative gained at the end of a first half during which they had played the better football and created more chances before scoring a goal which rewarded creativity, vision and hard work.
Lewis Stevenson initiated the move, feeding Scott Robertson as he headed into space on the right and Jason Cummings attempted to flick his cross goalwards, but was off target. Callum Booth did not give up on it, however, as he chased in from the left flank and got the ball back across goal where Robertson had the easiest of finishes.
That goal came a minute before the interval, but Hibs rarely looked like adding to it in the second half, leaving their frustrated manager, Alan Stubbs, to suggest that while most of his men deserved better than pass marks, they ultimately lost because they were at sixes and sevens.
"We didn't have enough eight out of 10 today, we had sixes and sevens. When you want to win games you need to have all eights and maybe a nine," was his assessment of how the sum of the individual parts had failed to add up to what was required.
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