Hearts B put on an impressive display on Tuesday night with a 3-0 victory over Tranent at Ainslie Park.
Liam Fox made two changes to the side that beat Cumbernauld Colts at the weekend as Ethan Drysdale and Adam Forrester replaced Rocco Friel and Bailey Dall.
It was a fast start from the men in maroon and they took a deserved lead after just five minutes through Callum Sandilands.
Makenzie Kirk had had a goal ruled out for offside just seconds earlier, but he turned provider and his cross from the left was met by a well-timed run from Sandilands, who side-footed the ball past Kelby Mason to open the scoring.
The Wee Jambos were all over the visitors in the early exchanges and almost doubled their lead in fine fashion on 9 minutes.
Skipper Luke Rathie sent an excellent ball over the top for Kirk, who’s first touch to control the ball, instantly took a Tranent defender out of the game. He then unleashed a sweet right-foot shot which was magnificently tipped on to the post by Mason.
The Wee Jambos deservedly doubled their lead after just four 14 minutes with a brilliant team move. Liam McFarlane gathered a Tranent corner and quickly rolled the ball out to the left.
Ryan Duncan and Bobby McLuckie combined down the left channel. The former slipped a low cross in that was intelligently dummied by Forrester, which left Sandilands in the open to dink the ball over Mason and put Hearts two goals to the good.
Things went from bad to worse for the visitors after 27 minutes when Kallum Higginbotham was shown a straight red card for a late tackle in front of the Hearts bench.
Sandilands came close on two occasions to grabbing the match ball before the interval, firstly a sweet strike from the edge of the box, was deflected behind, and from the resulting corner, a well-worked routine saw him fire wide at the front post.
Half time: Hearts 2-0 Tranent
Liam McFarlane hadn’t had a lot to do in the Hearts goal, but he came up with a big save to keep the men in maroon’s two goal lead intact, ten minutes into the second half. After punching clear a Tranent corner, he was up alertly to deny Broque Watson’s back post header.
The men in maroon sealed the points just after the hour mark. Sandilands was again denied his hat-trick by Mason, but ready on the spot was Makenize Kirk to slam home the rebound from the edge of the penalty box.
Former Hearts stopper Mason was keeping the score down and produced a fantastic save to prevent a certain own goal after a Tranent defender attempted to block McLuckie’s cross from the left.
Both sides made changes in the closing stages and the game rather petered out as the Wee Jambos saw the game out professionally to record a comfortable 3-0 victory.
Hearts: McFarlane, McLuckie, Sandilands (Stevenson, 80), Kirk, Gordon, Nair, Drysdale (Dall, 66), Forrester (Friel, 46), Duncan (Tait, 46), Rathie ©, Ross (Wilson, 50)
Subs: McConnell, Dall, Tait, Wilson, Stevenson, Friel, Smutek
Tranent: Mason, Brett, McIntyre ©, Greig, Horne, Murphy, Gray, Miller, Ross, Higginbotham, Watson
Subs: Scott, Walsh, Mylchreest, Somerville, McCrory-Irving, Jones, Bauld
