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YC&AC, Sat 4th February. The Hibs knew this was going to be a tricky fixture against the Geckoes. A windy day, a bumpy pitch, a scrapping, physical opposition with a point to prove coming off a (reportedly) unlucky loss and talismanic keeper Hitoshi in the U.S. Against the Geckoes, this was about as dangerous as it could get.
Despite this the Hibs began with their now almost customary early goal, scoring off their first attack when a flicked on header from a well directed throw in from Jay saw Yama get into the corner and cut a pin point ball back to Keita who finished well from about 10 yards. The Hibs then seemed to become complacent as we sat back and let them attack us too much and our defense looked in danger. A poor clearance and dangerous flick in a defensive position gifted possession to the Geckoes and they crossed a ball that stand in keeper Thomas spilled into the path of a Geckoes attacker whose shot was blocked but it fell for another attacker who bundled it over from close range to make it 1-1.
The second goal came when we gave up possession in midfield and the ball hugging Mexican midfielder ran through 2 weak challenges and passed into the left corner, the attacker shrugged off a weak challenge and finished well from a tight angle to make it 2-1. The Hibs then had two nice build ups that could have been goals, but Tomo couldn’t find the finishing touch on either occasion. Kuni K then scored a great individual goal to level the scores at 2-2.
The half time break contained one major message for the Hibs – get stuck in. Unfortunately the message pretty much fell on deaf ears. The second half saw the pace of the game slow as the wind picked up even further and the strange decisions from the referee mount up. The Hibs finished the last 10 minutes of the half strongly and were very unlucky not to pinch a winner. Jesus thumped a shot from some corner scraps that was cleared off the line and Yohei beat his man out wide and cut the ball back to George in space but the finishing touch was missing again.
So it finished at 2-2 which was a disappointing result for the Hibs against a team placed so lowly on the table. The Hibs could claim to have been unlucky and even the better side on the day, but the Geckoes could rightly claim to have wanted it more and deserved their point. This leaves the door ajar for the YCAC in what has become a 2 horse race for the title.
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Report - Bevan
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