Mark Burchill was unfortunate not to equalise seven minutes later when he met Paul Hartley’s free-kick and struck the base of the post.Hearts, though, restored parity after 23 minutes with a goal of sumptuous quality. It was cleared only as far as Scott Brown, who threaded a pass to O’Connor who stabbed the ball past Craig Gordon from just three yards.Hearts refused to dwell on the setback and began to take the contest to their hosts. But on eight minutes the real ball nestled in the Hearts net to hoist the decibel level around three-quarters of Easter Road.Garry O’Connor’s emergence this season has seen him restored to the Scotland side, and his 15th goal of the campaign was visibly savoured Riordan won a corner, which he then delivered into the box. “We needed to win this match and pull the gap back.”The Hibernian fans sensed that they, and not their rivals, would be playing in Europe next season and were taunting the visitors by throwing beach balls on to the pitch.

Derek Riordan’s second-half goal for Hibs was fit to win any game, but Webster’s late header levelled a pulsating derby.”The draw was a fair result but, looking at the bigger picture, it was a far better point for Hibs than us,” said the Hearts manager, John Robertson. Andy Webster may have claimed a share of the Edinburgh bragging rights for Hearts with his dramatic late equaliser at Easter Road yesterday, but the feeling is that Hibernian will be the side polishing their language skills in Europe next season.
Tony Mowbray’s side virtually killed off the Uefa Cup ambitions of their rivals, who remain eight points behind the Scottish Premier League’s third-placed side, with four games left. Wigan created the chances but their finishing was wayward; they came closest when a Roberts shot thudded back off a post.”We had some good chances – the only criticism is we didn’t work the goalkeeper enough,” Jewell said. De Zeeuw is on a distance-learning course, though he will go to London for an exam on 3 June – before which he hopes that Portsmouth’s Premiership future is secure.At the end of his football career, will it be sport or medicine? “I don’t know,” he says.

It’s a nice break from football.”His specialism is infectious diseases, partly because of the “entertaining and enthusiastic professor” he had as a younger student. “I’m getting a bit older now,” he says, “and thought I’d try and do a little bit – getting into study habits and all that It’s been strange but I’ve really enjoyed it. “I had to choose between medicine and football,” he says, “and I chose football because I had to do it 100 per cent.” He collected a masters degree in medical science before moving from Holland, and has recently picked up his studies again. The thing about them is that the sport is very genuine, very passionate, very enjoyable.”It wasn’t always sport for De Zeeuw.

The son of a carpenter – his father later worked in a steel plant, before dying of lung cancer – he has always been careful to build. This is his 10th year in English football and it is interesting that he spent four years at Barnsley, including that single, dizzying flirtation with the Premiership, and three at Wigan Athletic before joining Portsmouth “Three working-class towns,” he says “I’ve noticed that, too. It’s not a quick-fix solution.”De Zeeuw would never deal in such things. During the transfer window we had a lot of speculation about players going to various places And that’s not easy either. At the time we were also dealing with a change of manager, and that makes it even harder. But we now have continuity and must forget about all that.”After Redknapp was the Velimir Zajec interregnum It was a period in which De Zeeuw showed his mettle.