There were a few pleasant surprises for the travelling five hundred 'Well fans at Easter Road today as the team trotted out for the warm-up in sunny Edinburgh. Brannan and Twaddle had made the starting line up while Strong and Adams were fit enough to make the bench.
McMillan filled the central defence along with Kemble and Townsley had a role deep in midfield. Although we started 4-3-3 Oueifio soon started following Latapy all over the park.
We began brightly and were the better team for the first twenty odd minutes. Goodman had a couple of shots and Elliott threatened a couple of times. Hibs looked unsettled with lots of loose passes. Our best move of the half came from Ouiefio robbing Latapy just inside their half, running on and slotting a fine ball through the box to Elliott whose shot hit the post. It was ruled offside.
Referee McCurry provided the main talking points (again) - two strong penalty claims by Hibs were cast aside and Sauzee, Lehman and Fenwick were booked - Townsley joining them just before the break.
Goram was hardly troubled though, apart from a couple of smashing free kicks from the left of the box
The second half saw Strong replace Brannan and within the first couple of minutes Hammell and Oueifio were booked for persistent fouling. It was only a matter of time before a goal came and from yet another free kick on the left Goram's block was hammered by Latapy into the net off of Paatelainen.
We fought hard to get back into the game and soon McCulloch had a couple of chances. First a near post header saved by Colgan and then our best opportunity of the game - Twaddle returned a clearance high into the box and Lee beat the defence to volley the ball high from around eight yards. Nae breaks!
In seventy five minutes Corrigan replaced the tiring Townsley and immediately we lost the second goal. It was a bad goal from the 'Well defence point of view. A long free kick from Colgan (yes, their goalie!) cleared our back four and Paataleinan found himself with Goram to beat. He found the goalie's right hand corner with the shot and that was that.
Despite much effort we never looked like getting back into contention.
There were no failures in the team - just no breaks. The commitment and passing was there aplenty but there was no spark or imagination to provide the goal we needed.
Another defeat for us but on today's showing Hibs will not be at the top of the pile for long.
Billy reckoned that they deserved the win because they "won more of the individual battles in the middle of the park". That seemed a wee bit harsh. They took a couple of their chances and we didn't!
Team Goram, McMillan, Kemble, Brannan(Strong), McCulloch, Goodman, Twaddle, Hammell, Townsley(Townsley), Elliott(Adams), Oueifio
Hibs 2 Motherwell 0
Attendance 9,852
16 September 2000