Hanlon: We knew it'd come
by Brian Etherson, 18 August 2008
Hibernian defender Paul Hanlon has admitted that the criticism was starting to affect the players after their shocking pre-season results.
Supporters voiced their deep concern about the lack of goals and feared the worst for the up and coming campaign, but Hanlon said the players were never in doubt that they would turn the corner, and the reaction after Saturday’s 3-2 victory over Falkirk was certainly not relief.
“I don’t know if it was beginning to tell, but there was pressure there on us getting goals,” Hanlon said. “But we always knew that it would come eventually and we’re just delighted to get three today.
“They were just congratulating each other as we were just delighted to get the win and looking forward to next week.”
Hibernian’s performance came under scrutiny during the build-up to the new season, and when they were dumped out of the Intertoto Cup in July, supporters were starting to worry.
However, Hanlon now reckons that the display against Falkirk could be used as a benchmark for the rest of the season and both Nish [Colin] and Fletcher [Steven] are a perfect match.
Hanlon added: “We always knew we could do it, we had been creating chances during pre-season but they just didn’t go in, so we are just delighted that they went in today.
“We’ve just got to look forward, take every game as they come and get as many three points as we did today.
“They [Fletcher and Nish] read each others’ game really well, they link up brilliantly, so I’m sure they will get a few more goals between them throughout the season.
“We could have wrapped it up mostly in the first-half but they never went in, but we’ve managed to keep them [Falkirk] out and we got the three points.”