Win Built On Defence

Craig Levein was pleased to secure his first win on his return as Hearts manager with a  1-2 scoreline at the SuperSeal Stadium.  Goals from Ross Callachan and Kyle Lafferty secured the points despite Hamilton pulling a goal back through Rakish Bingham.  The defence held firm and kept out Hamilton in a fraught second half to confirm the win. Hailing keeper Jon McLaughlin for his calmness under pressure in the second period, Levein explained how he felt the game had gone in his side’s favour. He said: "It was a strange game. We had an excellent first thirty minutes, where we were dominant, then the turn around came when we lost a goal due to a mistake, and Hamilton punished us. We had to defend excellently in the second half to win the game.  It would have been great to extend the lead, but first and foremost we had to make sure Hamilton didn’t score again. Other than a free-kick that Jon McLaughlin had to save superbly, I don’t think we were troubled much in the second half.  Jon actually picked up a groin injury in the first half, which clearly affected his kicking, and I wasn’t sure he’d see out the 90 minutes, but obviously his mobility was pretty good to save the free kick and he caught 3 or 4 crosses to take a lot of pressure off the defence."

The game threatened to boil over in the second half but the Hearts defence - marshalled by Christophe Berra - kept their cool and never looked in trouble. Ex-defender Levein had been involved in such tussles before so was well placed to comment on his current defence force.  He went on: "That was a typical, gritty Scottish game, the kind that makes good defenders. I didn’t feel Hamilton would score based on how we defended, so it was great to see our defenders hanging in there and not panicking.  Hamilton’s midfield is a tough one to fight against, so it was a scrap at times today. It does our confidence the world of good, however, to know that when there’s a fight on the pitch, that we can dig deep and grind out a win like that."