13-04-2016, 22:37
(13-04-2016, 22:28)ritchiebaby Wrote: For my sins I was at Easter Road last night and only got home just before 1 am. Most of it's been said already (the shoddy defending late on), but I'll take a slightly different point of view on my favourite subjects.
Anthony Stokes - he was all right last night, he did run around a bit, but if he's not interested, he just isn't willing to try. I thought Hibs got him as a striker, but he's definitely not a striker. He almost broke through in the first half, but was cynically felled by the "last man", who got away with it.
Jason Cummings - see comments re Stokes not trying, but he did have quite a good game. The Falkirk keeper made 3 good saves from him right in front of me in the second half and brought him down in the box after the nonsensical "offside" decision. (Hanlon's successful penalty claim looked really soft to me, but the referee had a far better view to see if any contact was made.)
Alan Stubbs' substitutions - well, after all my previous comments, he finally made all 3 substitutions, but in the wrong match at the wrong time. He's not made them in matches we were losing and desperately needed to change the game. Now in a match we're winning 2-0 with less than 10 minutes to go and hanging on with a bit of midfield bite about us, he's brought on 2 subs into the midfield and changed the game.
Finally a wee bit about Falkirk - they were an extremely cynical team and clever with it. Hippolyte was very dangerous - he did his best to cheat his way into getting Hibs' players carded. Bartley was cautioned after an early tackle which was certainly a foul but not a bookable foul. And so it continued. On their positive side, Falkirk were quicker in thought and action than Hibs and will be difficult opponents in any play-off game, so much so, that they will be strong favourites to go up on last night's performance. A big plus mark too for the 1,300 Falkirk fans, who sounded like double that number, even when their team was 2 down.
Falkirk's record against both Hibs and Rangers this year is excellent when considered from the point of view of available resources.
You can't overly condemn them for being robust in the challenge etc - it has certainly brought them a measure of success.