Shiels gives Paatelainen a perfect start

HIBERNIAN 3

Shiels 5, 53, 84

INVERNESS 0

FOR a club making a new beginning, this was the perfect start. The punters were only just getting comfortable in their seats again following the standing ovation for new manager Mixu Paatelainen when Dean Shiels proved why a change of regime may just help the Easter Road side get their season back on track.

His hat-trick was a metaphorical two fingers to previous manager John Collins, who had struggled to find a place in the side for Shiels. Ostracised, the versatile attacker has admitted that if there hadn't been a change in gaffer he would have had to leave the club to get first-team football. Yesterday the home fans were celebrating the fact that hadn't happened.

Paatelainen had made six changes to the starting line-up and among those installed in the side was 17-year-old Paul Hanlon, deputising in the left back role. With Birmingham City making an increased offer of nearer £2m for David Murphy, it's a position the youngster could soon be vying for with Lewis Stevenson. The latter had failed to make it due to a hamstring injury.

But even without some first-choices, there was a greater ease in Hibs' play. Paatelainen had dismissed the suggestion that he would adopt more cavalier tactics, unhappy at the kamikaze connotations of the word, but did insist that there would be an attacking style to his team's play. He wanted the defence to concentrate on safety first but those further forward to resort to the movement and passing play which had served them so well earlier in the season. He backed that up by giving both the Moroccans, Meroune Zemmama and Abdessalam Benjelloun, as well as Shiels, a start and it paid off in the opening few minutes.

With verve and a desire to run at goal, Shiels picked up on a Zemmama ball in the fifth minute and from a central position he darted past two Inverness players to give himself an opening and send his angled shot beyond Michael Fraser in the Inverness goal.

It was the ideal welcome home present for Paatelainen. It also helped settle the capital side. Although imbued with greater spirit than had been the case in recent weeks, there was still the reality of facing up to an Inverness side who have been enjoying the kind of results of late that Hibs didn't appear to be able to buy, let alone conjure up of their own accord. While the Edinburgh side went into the match on the back of eight games without win and only one win in 12, manager of the month Craig Brewster's men had won seven of their last nine encounters.

This was the Scottish Cup, though, and for Hibs there was also the added incentive of finally ending their tournament hex. But few things in football inspire players like a new manager. Especially one who has given them the go-ahead to play to their own strengths.

The strike force set about their task with enthusiasm and by the time the match was 20 minutes old they had mustered up almost as many opportunities than the team as a whole had managed in the past month, with Zemmama and Shiels the main sources of creativity. Having contributed the first goal, the Northern Ireland lad then weighed in with the second and third to secure the victory for his team-mates and the accolades for himself.

The second came in the 53rd minute when he sent another angled shot past the visiting goalkeeper. It was no more than his overall play and adventure had merited as Paatelianen's reinvigorated charges showed the most zip and posed a much greater threat in front of goal than a slightly flat Inverness side.

Shiels completed his rout with a third in the 83rd minute. A quick break saw second-half substitute Mikael Antoine-Curier play in Filipe Morais at the second attempt and having journeyed up the right wing he was only denied by Fraser's left-hand post. But it rebounded back and the first to react was Shiels, racing into a central area, and he blasted it into the net.

It was an example of the home side's greater hunger but Inverness defender Phil McGuire was somehow aggrieved and was booked for dissent. That indiscipline was to come back and bite him four minutes later when Morais seemed to tumble too easily in the area and there were verbals and a bit of slight jostling which led to a second yellow for both players. It was an untidy end to the match but did little to detract from the final outcome as far as Hibs were concerned. If this was a sign of things to come, they will be impatient for a return to league duty and next weekend's trip to Tynecastle.


MIXU DRAW DELIGHT

IT SEEMS that Mixu Paatelainen's positivity knows no bounds. Having guided Hibs to their first win in nine games, the prospect of facing Rangers in the next round of the Scottish Cup was welcomed with open arms by the new Easter Road manager as the capital side pursue their dream of winning the trophy for the first time in 106 years.

"Great. Fantastic," he said after the draw for the last 16 was made. "The Rangers/East Stirling tie has not been played yet so we can't get too excited but if it's Rangers then it's a fantastic tie. We should have a full house here and everybody loves those occasions. I'm the same, the players are the same and everybody would look forward to that tie."

His confidence will have been bolstered by a vastly improved showing from a squad which already seems to have regained some of the sparkle which has been lacking in recent weeks. And Dean Shiels in particular has cause to be grateful. Brought back in from the cold, he scored a hat-trick of goals his new manager claimed he would have been proud of in his heyday.

"We showed today we are a skilful team with teh ability to go forward and create chances. I know Dean Shiels' ability. I have seen him many times in the first team and the reserves and his attitude has always been fantastic and I gave him a chance. That gave him a lift and he used it really well. He has the ability to finish and the ability to go past players and he was fantastic today."

Shiels found himself frozen out of the team by former manager John Collins and had looked set to leave the club during the January window. He is now relishing his time at Easter Road again and said: "It was satisfying for me and for the team to get through and when a manager comes in you want to make a good impression and hopefully I've done that. It has been quite a frustrating first part to the season but hopefully now the new manager is here that won't be the case for the rest of it."

While left-back David Murphy watched the match from the stands, Paatelainen insisted that was due to injury rather than the increased transfer bid from Birmingham City. "It's good to hear that the bids are increasing and getting higher and higher but he is still a Hibs player and while he is I'm looking forward to using him."

The Premiership side are understood to have upped their offer to around £1.75m.