Hibs forced to sweat on Fletch

HIBS will have to wait another 24 hours to discover whether top scorer Steven Fletcher will be out of action for up to six weeks.

The Scotland under-21 striker was forced to limp out of the Easter Road side's 1-1 draw with Falkirk midway through the first half with the fear he had chipped a bone in his ankle.

Boss John Collins had hoped Fletcher would undergo a scan to determine the exact extent of the damage, but that has been delayed to allow the swelling in the joint to go down.

He said: "Steven will go for an MRA scan tomorrow and we'll find out for definite then, so there's no point in speculating until we get the results.

"His ankle is still pretty swollen and the feeling is there could be a small chip in a bone but until he has had the scan all we can do is keep our fingers crossed."

Should Collins' worst fears be realised the normal healing time for such an injury is around six weeks which would be a massive blow for Hibs with the hectic schedule over the festive period and the start of this season's Scottish Cup campaign falling within that spell.

It would also come at a time when Collins' players are battling to find form, the draw with Falkirk making it just one win in eight games as they've slipped from second place in the SPL table to fifth.

Clayton Donaldson's hotly- disputed penalty was cancelled out by Graham Barrett's equaliser ten minutes from time, although Collins pointed to a Lewis Stevenson shot which crashed off the bar minutes after Hibs had gone ahead as yet another example of the bad luck which has befallen his team.

But he said: "There's no point in feeling sorry for ourselves – that won't get us anywhere. We need to knuckle down, get back to basics and do what we are good at – short, sharp passing on the grass.

"At the moment, we are trying to rush things too much, wanting to go from A to C rather than A to B to C."

There was a surprise for Hibs fans at the match when goalkeeper Andy McNeil made his first appearance of the season, stepping in for hitherto ever- present Yves Ma-Kalambay.

Collins said: "Yves missed training on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after picking up a back injury. We thought he might make it so kept it quiet. Hopefully he'll be back in training tomorrow."

And, while McNeil was criticised in some quarters for failing to stop Barrett's shot, he was exonerated by Collins who said: "The ball took a slight deflection, but enough to sneak in to the corner."

Midfield star Brian Kerr could only find a seat on the bench as did Kevin McCann, Collins explanation being that both needed to be rested given the number of games they had played.

However, both will come into contention for Saturday's trip to face champions Celtic as will others such as Dean Shiels, who is likely to be given a run-out in tomorrow's reserve match against Motherwell at Almondvale (kick-off 1pm). Collins said: "A few of them will play tomorrow to get their match fitness up."