Doyle error costs Hearts dear at Fir Park

Motherwell 2 Heart of Midlothian 1

Ladbrokes Premiership – Sunday 17th February 2019 – Fir
Park

A mistake from Hearts
goalkeeper Colin Doyle denied Hearts a share of the spoils at Fir Park on
Sunday as Motherwell continued their good recent form of late. Doyle inexplicably
let a weak free-kick from Turnbull squirm from his grasp in the final minute of
the game meaning Craig Levein’s men left Lanarkshire with nothing from a game
in which they deserved at least a draw.

Levein made four changes to
the team that eased past Auchinleck Talbot in the Scottish Cup seven days ago –
Marcus Godinho, Conor Shaughnessy, Oliver Bozanic and Jake Mulraney came in for
Michael Smith, Demetri Mitchell, Olly Lee and Steven MacLean.

Hearts made a decent start to
the game and were denied a penalty in the early stages when Jake Mulraney was
stopped in no uncertain terms by Campbell inside the Motherwell penalty box.
However, referee Nick Walsh wasn’t interested in Hearts penalty appeals.

The home side took the lead
in the 13^th minute when Hastie was allowed to run into the Hearts
penalty box and fire a fine shot past Doyle.

Seven minutes before
half-time Hearts equalised. Sean Clare burst forward before sending Uche
Ikpeazu free. The big man crossed for Steven Naismith who eventually poked the
ball past the Well keeper to draw parity.

Clare then had a chance to
put the visitors in front, but his effort went wide.

The second half was an end-to-end
affair with both sides having chances to score. The best chance fell to Steven Naismith,
but the usually deadly front man ballooned his shot over the bar from around
three yards. Moments later John Souttar headed wide from similar close range as
groans emanated from the travelling Hearts support.

They were collectively holding
their hands in their heads when the roof fell in on Hearts in the final minute.
Ben Garuccio challenged Grimshaw just outside the Hearts penalty box. Referee
Walsh deemed it a dangerous challenge and immediately flashed a red card to the
Hearts man. But worse was to follow form the resultant free-kick.

Turnbull’s free kick looked a
tame one and Hearts keeper Doyle looked set to collect easily. However, the
Irishman allowed the ball to bounce in front of him and he couldn’t stop it
from going into the net for Motherwell’s winner.

Doyle had had a decent game
up until that point but his howler meant Hearts would head back to Gorgie with
nothing to show for their efforts.

Craig Levein couldn’t quite believe
what he had just witnessed. He told the official Hearts website:

“25-30 years ago, you would get away with the challenge Garuccio made no bother. All the players know that if you leave the ground to tackle, which Ben did, it’s trouble. Although he’s won the ball and the player wasn’t injured, it’s just the nature of the game. It’s not a surprise.

“I’m not criticising the referee at all because Ben did leave the ground. I think everybody knows that that’s not acceptable. We’ve got to take it on the chin.

As
for Colin Doyle’s gaffe, the manager was philosophical.

“It happens. Colin Doyle has made an error from a free-kick that is fairly easily saved, so the emotions go from pretty positive to ‘how the hell did we get beat there?'”

You just hope that when your players make mistakes that they don’t result in you losing points. Unfortunately, we’ve lost one and at that stage of the game I felt positive about us winning the game, so it feels like we’ve gone from one extreme to another.

“Colin’s been doing okay, I don’t have any complaints. We talk about it because it happened. We’ve just got to deal with it, pick ourselves up and go again next week.”

Motherwell: Gillespie, Grimshaw,
Aldred, Dunne, Tait, Turnbull, Campbell, Rodriguez (McHugh 68’), Ariyibi (Frear
64’), Hastie, Main (Scott 81’).

Hearts: Doyle, Souttar,
Shaughnessy (Garuccio 59’), Berra, Godinho, Djoum, Bozanic, Mulraney (Dikamona
91’), Clare (Keena 79’), Naismith, Ikpeazu.

Referee: Nick Walsh

Attendance: 5,091

Top man: Uche Ikpeazu