MANAGER and YOUNG PLAYERof the MONTH FOR DECEMBER 2004

Last updated : 24 January 2005 By Brian Hine

TONY MOWBRAY: - This Award is for the whole club says Mogga

DEREK RIORDAN:- A Hat-trick of young player awards to Deek

Hibernian manager Tony Mowbray has praised his players and backroom staff for helping him win his first ever manager-of-the-month award.

The Hibees Gaffer was named the ‘Bank of Scotland Manager of the Month’ for December 2004, after taking the Hibees to third place in the Premier League in what has been an great first 6 month’s of his managerial Debut at Leith San Siro.

Alongside Mogga Was …..Yes! it was Deek, again!! , to pick up his THIRD ‘young player of the month’ Award this season

So The Hibees Pick up the Manager of the month and the young player of the month for December 2005

Young striker Derek Riordan who was young player of the month and his Gaffer, Tony Mowbray who said, on receiving the first Award of his short managerial career:

''I do not see this as an award for me, it is a recognition of how well the team is doing at the moment.

''The players are showing a great desire for the game and all the attributes that make a good team such as belief, confidence and determination, they have in abundance. I am at the face of an organisation that is running well behind the scenes. ''Mark Venus, Ian Westwater, Dougie Fowler and myself are there to facilitate the players and it is all about them going out and trying to win a game of football.

Any manager will tell you that the backroom staff is everything at a football club and without the right people behind you then, you cannot achieve anything.

I can't be around the players all the time but Mark is in there constantly, encouraging them and telling them all the right things.

Ian, our goalkeeping coach, works with his keepers and they have a very special relationship, it's something of a fraternity.

The game has become a lot more fitness orientated. When I first came in I was quite alarmed. I felt the fitness levels needed to be improved, although I suppose all managers say that.

I know it was pre-season but Dougie had a big part to play in raising the fitness levels of the squad, and he continues to do that.

So all of those guys have a major part to play not just technically but psychologically, because you have got to talk to the players every day and send the right messages over to them.

Mogga then went on and paid tribute to former Hibs bosses Blobby and the ginger Judas for sowing the seeds of the Edinburgh side's current success. (Aye Mogga is being nice and professional there I think ;-) Because I would thank John Park for these players and the future players of Hibs)

He said: ''Credit has to go to the last management regime and the one before that for the young players we have got at this football club just now. I have not made Derek Riordan what he is today, Derek is a product of the environment he has been living and working in. I have just tried to put fuel on the fire and to continue his progress.

Deek, who picked up his hat-trick of young player of the month awards for this season, insisted the new Hibs fitness regime ‘Has’ contributed to the club's success so far this season.

He said: I do not like running much but the gaffer makes us do it and it has been helping us, especially at the end of games when fitness does come into it.

Well done Mogga and Deek

From all at Hibernian-mad

Brian Hine

GGTTH