Gašpuitis denied glory of goal against Gordon

“I think I will do better next time. I personally wished to score in this game but didn’t score, I was unlucky this time.

The Pars Lithuanian centre back Vytas Gašpuitis was playing boys football when he first got sight of Scottish football. Games shown on television in his native country were predominantly matches involving Hearts following their takeover in 2005 by Vladimir Romanov.

While watching fellow countrymen like Edgaras Jankauskas, Deividas Česnauskis, Saulius Mikoliūnas, Kęstutis Ivaškevičius, Marius Zaliukas and Andrius Velička playing in the Scottish Premier League, Vytas admired the qualities of Craig Gordon keeping goal for the Jambos for the first two seasons under Romanov. It was the Hearts keeper who also played in Scotland’s European Championship qualifiers against Lithuania in 2006 and 2007 on his way to his current 56 caps.

On Saturday when Dunfermline handed a starting debut to Vytas, seeing a familiar figure in the Hearts goal, fired a great desire for the 6’5” defender to score against a boyhood hero. He came very close just three minutes into the second half, getting his head to a Dom Thomas corner that beat Gordon, only for the crossbar to deny him. He told the media post match:-

“I think I will do better next time. I personally wished to score in this game but didn’t score, I was unlucky this time.

“I think the game was very close. We had our chances and the opposition also had good chances but the result is probably correct. The whole team did a good job, in defence and in the counterattacks.”

Vytas who began his career with his hometown club Šiauliai, before going on to play for FK Venta Kuršėnai, Atlantas Klaipeda and FK Panevėžys had played more minutes in international football in March than for his new club but he slotted in well in the defence alongside Euan Murray. The 26 year old featured for his country against Kosovo, Switzerland and Italy while away with his national side to take his caps total to six. He continued:-

“Playing with Lithuania against top teams and top players were a very good experience. They were good games but unfortunately we lost those games but I think we did a good job. We maybe played against better quality teams but as a team we did a good job.

“When you play against such good opponents and good quality players I think you learn a lot, a lot of good experience.

“The journey was very hard to get back here to Scotland after the international games. I felt good maybe a little tired in the second half but everything I think was very good.”

International duty meant that Vytas missed the disastrous Dunfermline results in Dundee and Kirkcaldy but he was pleased to find his team mates looking forward to and motivated for the match against Hearts.

“Everybody was concentrating on this game because the next game is always the most important game. Everybody was prepared for this game.

“You can always do better but we had a clean sheet today, we did well in defence and in attack we have also had good moments. Today was not a bad game. A play off place is the main target and we focus on this.”

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