David Gray felt his resurgent Hibernian side fully merited their first away win over Edinburgh rivals Hearts for exactly five years after veteran forward Dwight Gayle stepped off the bench to secure a 2-1 victory.
The two sides were level at the break after Hearts defender Kye Rowles and his Hibs counterpart Rocky Bushiri both scored own goals.
The Easter Road team felt frustrated not to be ahead at the break after having the best of the first half. But they notched what proved to be the winner in the 78th minute when 35-year-old Gayle – who announced last Friday that he planned to retire at the end of the season – knocked in a Nicky Cadden cross.
Hibs had not previously won at Tynecastle since Boxing Day 2019, and their players celebrated jubilantly in front of their 2,800 supporters at full-time.
“I’m delighted,” said manager Gray after his team made it three wins on the spin. “I think you see that with the scenes at the end. It’s a real difficult place to come, history tells you that.
“That’s something I’ve challenged the group a lot in the last few weeks, which is about creating our own history and changing the history as much as we can and try to build on that together.
“I thought we played really well and limited them to very few chances. Maybe we could have been a wee bit more clinical ourselves. I thought first half we were excellent. To go in 1-1, having been as good as we were, especially away from home, the players could have reacted in a real negative way after that.
“I thought Hearts started the second half slightly better without causing us loads of problems. But we still showed that quality in the second half. I think Craig Gordon had to make more saves than Jordan (Smith), which is great.
“I thought we were well deserving of the win in the end.”
Hearts boss Neil Critchley admitted “I didn’t like us today for long periods of that game” as his team suffered another setback in their quest to pull away from the relegation zone.
“I don’t think we were good enough,” he said. “Our initial start to the game was fine, the first five minutes, and then we conceded a really poor goal from a set-piece so we were left chasing the game. I thought that knocked us a little bit.
“We weren’t our usual selves. We were fortunate to be 1-0. We then grew into the game, the last 10 minutes of the half, we started to get more control and play better, show better composure, play better football.
“In the second half, I thought we played much better, had control of the game, played good football, pushed them back. You felt we were in the ascendancy, you could feel us growing and the crowd coming with us.
“Then we conceded a really poor goal, which is the story of us so far. Then we were left chasing the game. I just think we were not good enough for long enough, only in spells and in a game like this, that’s not enough.”
