New Rangers boss Dick Advocaat encountered a Hearts team pumped up to the maximum by Jim Jefferies and in unforgiving mood about Rangers' defensive problems.
The pace of Hearts' attack was promised to be Jefferies' weapon and so it proved, as th
e Rangers defence was scythed open time and time again in the first half. On six minutes, Neil McCann skinned makeshift right-back Rino Gattuso but his tame low cross should not have posed too many problems. But Arthur Numan let the ball go behind him and, as he stretched in vain, there was Stephane Adam to bash the ball ruthlessly past future Tynecastle hero Antti Niemi.
Gordon Durie was on the centre circle to restart with a "calm down, don't panic" message – if only for his sake he had told Hearts.
The Gorgie side had power and pace, something Rangers could not match. And it was Swede Jonas Thern who was caught faltering for the second goal as Hearts threatened to run riot.
Adam was the provider this time after leaving Thern stranded and he played the ball through to Jim Hamilton, who scored with a clinical, angled drive. The recently completed rebuilding work at Tynecastle would have been under pressure had Hearts scored a third and without Niemi's acrobatic double save from the two goalscorers, they would have done just that seconds later.
But Rangers pulled one back when Durie headed Thern's cross from the right down into the path of Giovanni van Bronckhorst. The Dutchman's miscued right footer went straight into the path of Rod Wallace, the man who admitted before the game that he didn't have a clue where Hearts played, and asked how far away Edinburgh was. But he at least exhibited his prowess at reading the route to goal by dispatching a shot low past Gilles Rousset.
Durie clenched a fist at the restart and demanded another before half-time. But the Scotland striker was finding it difficult himself to collect any change from Paul Ritchie and was booked for deliberate handball in one challenge on the Hearts' defender.
The best equalising opportunity was hit by van Bronckhorst when he sent a diagonal skimmer to take some shavings off Rousset's left-hand post.
Kanchelskis replaced Thern at the interval for a match with Gary Naysmith, yet if that was to work, his midfield should have been instructed to pass him the ball.
When they did, it was the young Naysmith who won the most serious battle, blocking the Russian from shooting in injury time, then brilliantly feeding McCann with an arcing pass up the wing.
Of far greater nuisance was Wallace, who shaped for the spectacular with an overhead kick and had a 20-yard chance made for him by Durie's lay-off. Both flashed over the bar and, later in the game, he was denied by Rousset's point-blank reactions in a scramble.
Then a bustling run from Gattuso ended in the disappointment of the weakest of shots after Gabriel Amato, on for van Bronckhorst, held off David Weir. The cutting edge had gone at the opposite end, too.
McCann nutmegged Moore but stalled upon meeting Niemi, who scrambled clear. The best play from Hearts now was defence in depth. The Gorgie side soaked pressure up brilliantly, too, as frenzy took over.
Albertz swerved in a special, Rousset parried, but Numan mis-kicked in foreign territory. But Hearts held on and three quarters of the stadium erupted in celebration at the final whistle after a hard-fought win for the Tynecastle side.
Hearts: Rousset, Naysmith, David Weir, Salvatori, Ritchie, McCann, Fulton, Adam (Murray 86), Hamilton, Locke, Flogel. Subs not used: McKenzie, Quitongo, Holmes, Milne.
Rangers: Niemi, Porrini, Numan, Van Bronckhorst (Amato 65), Durie, Albertz, Thern (Kanchelskis 46), Ferguson, Wallace, Gattuso, Moore. Subs not used: Vidmar, Nicholson, Mark Brown.
The full article contains 659 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
