Joyous Jambo Toby Sibbick insists his derby sensation was well worth the wait after his Easter Road rampage saw the defender finally end a four-year scoring drought. The Hearts ace put the seal on another huge capital triumph for the Tynecastle men after darting the length of the field to finish off a blistering stoppage-time counter.
The 23-year-old lapped up the moment in front of the jubilant travelling support before turning round to stare down the few remaining Hibs fans still in their seats. It was the perfect way to hush the Leith boo boys who have still not forgiven his decision to snub a move to the green half of Edinburgh a couple of years back. And it also made up for the anguish Sibbick went through just three weeks ago when he thought he’d ended his long dry spell in front of goal in the team previous showdown, only for an offside flag to cut short his celebrations.
Sibbick was due to mark the fourth anniversary of his last goal, a famous strike that helped AFC Wimbledon stun West Ham in a 2019 FA Cup tie, on Thursday. But he’s hopes the wait for his next will be a lot sooner.
The former Barnsley stopper said: “I’ve been saying for a while now that I need to score. The one in the derby at home got disallowed, so there was no better time than today to score my first one. Hopefully I can add a few more this season.
“It was my first goal here at the club, I haven’t scored many in my career, it’s something I need to work on. To score and send the fans home happy - and they were going wild at the time - was an amazing feeling. There was a bit of stick from the Hibs fans but I don’t pay attention to that, fans will always try to get on your back but I had the backing of our fans today, I scored and hopefully that shut the Hibs fans up. Yeah, of course it was a dream to score in front of the Hearts support.
“It was a tough game, our fans were probably nervy watching it, Hibs hit the post a couple of times and had a few good chances. When we went down to 10 men it was only 2-0, so to score the third and calm the nerves a bit was a good feeling.”
There was 95 minutes on the clock when Sibbick surged away from Josh Campbell before dinking past a forlorn David Marshall. A heavy first touch at first put the move in doubt but Sibbick reckons he may not have got that long-awaited goal without it.
“If I don’t take the first touch, although it was heavy, I don’t necessarily think I score,” he said. “It brings the keeper out a bit. If it was too close to my body he would’ve stayed on his line and the angle’s tighter but the first touch brought the keeper out and I thought, ‘Just dink it over him’ and fortunately it worked. So I’m happy with it.”
The defeat will sting Lee Johnson’s men all the more as they gave as good as they got during the run of play. But while the best the hosts could offer was a couple of efforts from Campbell and Ellie Youan that smacked back off the woodwork, Hearts showed how it should be done with three clinical finishes from Josh Ginnelly, Lawrence Shankland and Sibbick.
It was a continuation of the blistering attacking form they produced during Wednesday’s five-goal rout over Aberdeen. In fact, that red hot run has roots going back much further, with Robbie Neilson’s team having now notched up 21 goals in the eight games since the World Cup break.
But Sibbick is just as proud of the efforts his side have been making at the other end of the park, with Zander Clark now on four clean sheets from six appearances since stepping up to replace crocked skipper
Craig Gordon.
And he reckons the new man between the posts has become just as important on the pitch as Scotland ace Gordon. He said: “Today wasn’t our best game passing-wise, they were pressing us really high and probably had better chances than us. But the back three, the back five, stayed resilient and we kept another clean sheet – that’s three in a row now and we want to keep striving for more and keep adding to that.
“We were conceding far too many goals before the winter break. Since we came back we haven’t conceded many. That’s three clean sheets in a row now. We’ve been doing a lot of defensive work on the training pitch. It’s something to keep building on. Ultimately, if you don’t concede you can’t lose the game. That’s what we aim for. If we’re solid at the back then we give our attackers the best chance of scoring.
“Zander is a massive presence on the pitch for us. He doesn’t stop talking and is always encouraging. It’s good to have him in the net, he’s been class. He’s been called upon a few times when he has played and he’s stood up to it so far.”
Hearts reward for yesterday’s triumph is a trip to Hamilton in the last 16 next month but Sibbick has eyes on going a lot further.
He said: “Yeah, lifting a cup is a target we set out before the season. Coming into this game, league form goes out the window and anything can happen in cup games. If we started solid with a strong foundation, we knew we could win the game and that’s what we did.”
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