Having said that before kick off there was a touch of mend and make do about our starting line up with a patched up midfield and what is I suppose (with Whelan,Craig crocked and Pasquenelli still not fit enough to start) our third string front line with the raw John Stewart making only his second start and Darren Mackie leading the line.....So it was always gonna be touch and go whether we'd extend our unbeaten start.
And yet despite all this we actually controlled the game and had the best of the scoring chances (including an absolute sitter for Mackie) and yet like a bad acid flash back to last year.. we paid for our inability to put the game away and with the first (and only) flash of individual skill of the game.....we were sucker punched.
Still if yer gaun tae get sucker punched then Riordan's volleyed goal was (and I believe this is the technical term here)...A feckin Peach !!!!
Having cleared up a threat a few seconds earlier Big Phil's let his concentration lapse for a split second under a high ball which was long enough for Riordan to let fly with an absolute pearler past Preece.
Now our opening performances under Tango and Sash's have had shades of Rehhagels Greece. We've perfected the art of throttling the midfield and shutting our opponents out,grabbing the lead before pulling back to holding what we have...and until Riordan's semi divine intervention it went was all goin to plan again as we'd ground Hibs pretty much to a halt by denying them the space to get their nippy front men going.
But we now faced an entirely different and new scenario as we now had to chase the game....would we be found out ?
Well actually we came quite close, Pasquenelli came on and mixed it up and Hibs had to scrape two efforts off the line to preserve their lead...but by the same token as we threw everything forward it freed up the space they'd been wanting for all afternoon and they had two or three chances to extend their lead on the counter.
A draw would have been a fair result, but we'd lost our unbeaten run to a bright youthful Hibs side who'll roll a few other teams this year.
Sure on any other day we would have got the breaks,Mackie would have scored his sitter...and yeah it might have been different if Whelan or Craig had been there.
But we didn't and they weren't.
Still I reckon we'll get over it pretty quickly.as all Saturday confirmed was what most sound minded Reds knew already...that like every other non OF SPL club, we have a decent team but we dinna have a squad.
....and as depressing as it is the more pragmatic amongst us will realise that we've almost inevitably got another half dozen or so performances like Saturday still to come.
I've not jumped entirely on the Tango and Sash bandwagon yet but how they react to oor wee "wobble"..(for as depressing as 2 home defeats in a week are...it's not in my eyes a "slump")..will give Reds a more honest indication of their management skills than they've had to date.
This is a month ripe with points and I don't think 7 points from our next 3 games isn't unrealistic or too much to ask if we can get Craig or Whelan back.
So let folk taunt about "bubbles burstin","bottle's goin" and us goin "back to the relegation battle"...for as much as we've enjoyed lording it up fae second we always knew it wisnae gonna last. It's been obvious there is genuine fear of a revival of the Red Menace out there...
So let them taunt.....in the Red Army....
WE CAN SMELL THEIR FEAR.