A draw was fair, but we could have won it. Hearts' Marian Kello produced some great saves, while we had the woodwork to thank for keeping David Obua's shot out in the final few minutes.
We had good performances from most players, with Graham Carey in particular outstanding. There was less of the messing around at the back and a bit more directness and it was a great team performance, coming up just short in our bid for the three points.
As expected, we made just one change as the injured Jon McShane dropped out. Gary Teale was the surprise replacement, and even more oddly he joined Steven Thompson up front. Still, at least we didn't have to worry about the unwritten rule of former players scoring with John Sutton not even a Hearts sub. Instead, Ryan Stevenson was their loan forward - and he's really a midfielder - with Stephen Elliott on the bench.
A woeful attempt from Eggert Jonsson that flew well off target was about the extent of the early excitement. However, after 15 minutes Teale managed to break from a Hearts attack and worked himself some space to pass the ball across to David van Zanten. After taking a touch he tried his luck with a shot that flew just wide - and Hearts keeper Marian Kello must have got a touch as we somehow got a corner out of it. It came to nothing, while Hearts had another chance when Taouil's long range effort sailed past the post.
Strangely, Hearts' attacks were resulting in our best moves as we countered quickly. A superb ball from Graham Carey found fellow ex Celt Paul McGowan, who was on the far right corner of the pitch. So of course, the obvious person to appear at that part of the pitch to receive a pass is Jeroen Tesselaar! Some neat passes between the two gave McGowan a sight of goal, but his effort was tipped behind by Kello.
Hearts' own left back almost conjured up their opening goal when Ryan McGowan left Vanzy for dead before trying to cut the ball back for one of his team-mates. It appeared to have gone too far before David Templeton arrived, only for him to be flattened by Carey. The Jambos screamed for a penalty but, thankfully, the officials decided the foul had been just outside the box and the free-kick came to nothing.
Carey is our free-kick specialist but he's also pretty handy in open play too, testing Kello with an effort from 30 yards that the Hearts keeper managed to turn behind. Carey then tried to slide the ball through for Kenny McLean but play was called back for offside - although how the linesman knew is anyone's guess considering he was miles behind play. A half chance came just before the break when Vanzy's cross found Thompson, but he failed to connect properly and the ball went behind.
Aside from his shot, Vanzy had not had the best of games but it was still a surprise when David Barron took his place for the second half. Teale hadn't exactly been brilliant either but had a chance to open the scoring when a poor Carey pass made its way through to him. However, he miscontrolled and had to pass to Kenny McLean who shot over after switching the ball to his left foot. Hearts then nearly went up the park and scoring, Jonsson's close range header being smothered by Craig Samson. We nearly went in front in comical fashion when Tesselaar's awful cross from deep nearly sneaked under Kello's crossbar, but he did just enough to put it over.
There was nothing comical about our next chance as McGowan smashed the ball forward to Thompson. he then chested the ball down nicely for the onrushing McLean, but his shot was poor and trundled wide. Taouil had been causing us a few problems so it was a bit of a surprise when David Obua replaced him. But Saints continued to look the more dangerous and a fierce Carey effort appeared to be going wide before Thompson launched himself at it and his strong header hit the bar before going behind.
Sadly, this seemed to wake Hearts up and Templeton let rip with a 20 yard effort that Samson parried behind for a corner. That led to a fine goal mouth scramble that would have been comical had it not been in our six yard box. Incredibly, Hearts couldn't stab the ball over the line and we escaped - for now. Then we made a double change - Hasselbaink rightly replacing Teale and Illias Haddad surprisingly coming on for McGowan. Hmmm.
Perhaps unsurprisingly considering McGowan had gone off, we began to lose our way and Hearts looked the more dangerous side. Skacel decided to go himself when he should have passed and nothing happened before he shot wide from Templeton's cross. Hearts thought having a proper striker on might help them exploit this advantage so put Stephen Elliott on for Adrian Mrowiec. This nearly backfired as he immediately wrestled Carey to the ground and he quickly played the ball through to Hasselbaink, but his shot was palmed away by Kello.
Andrew Driver came on for Templeton for the last five minutes before McLean nearly won it, his goalbound effort smashing off a Hearts player and going behind. We then had a huge let off when Obua produced a terrific shot from 30 yards that flew past Samson before hitting the post and thankfully bounced away from goal rather than into the net. Injury time produced another Saints corner and this time Carey's delivery flew across goal, needing just a touch to turn it in.
I was hoping for four points from our next two games and am more than happy with a point against Hearts - as long as we beat Dunfermline next time out.
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