Hearts looked to be heading for a crushing derby defeat before equalising late on through teenager James Wilson.
Clearly that took a lot of character to snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat at the home of your biggest rivals, when the home crowd is celebrating what they think is about to be three massive points.
The Jambos though will be disappointed it got to that point. Dominating possession and having an element of control, they failed to break through their stubborn opponents and in truth never really looked like doing so.
Neil Critchley reacts to Hearts draw with Hibs
Neil Critchley won his first two games in charge of Hearts with displays full of verve and attacking threat, so the fans were buoyed heading into the big on.
This time, they didn’t seem to have the same imagination in the final third with the sort of display the fans were critical of under previous bosses Robbie Neilson and Steven Naismith.
Critchley himself has been critical of that element of the performance. Hibs sat quite deep and allowed their rivals possession and they were unable to do much with it, struggling to break through the green wall.
He says the quality and decision making of the players let them down but did also focus on some positives, pleased with the control they had as well as the character shown to get back on level terms.
The Englishman said post-match: “I just said to the players ‘it’s a mixture of emotions really after the game because I’m pleased with the character we showed going 1-0 down’. But also disappointed with the manner in which we conceded the first goal.
“I felt we were in the ascendancy at that point. We wanted to come here, try and play our way and get control and I felt we did that. We got into some really dangerous, threatening positions and failed. Our quality and decision-making let us down.
“We didn’t keep the ball in the final third for long enough and I felt that was the message at half-time ‘make a few more passes in the final third.’
“We were wasteful in the first half and I felt we started to do that in the second half, started to push Hibs back. So to concede how we conceded and at that time was hugely disappointing.
“But as as I say our character after that was brilliant and I thought we were deserving of the point.”
Critchley Hearts assessment fair
Critchley was pretty much on the money with his assessment of and it is similar to how we saw things in our report.
Hearts were far from poor but did lack the quality to be able to say they deserved to win the game, and rode their luck at the other end.
It would be easy for a manager to fudge things a bit and point to the possession stats and the like to argue they were brilliant.
But Jambos fans will be pleased to hear an honesty around what there side were missing, while also being sure to highlight the areas they did do very well in.