Hearts ‘underdogs by long shot’ but still setting Premiership pace
The message from McInnes has been clear all season – ‘judge us after two rounds of fixtures’. The campaign has now reached that stage.
And if this is to be Hearts’ Judgement Day, Baningime’s red card somehow helped their cause for salvation.
Going into this game, they were the heavy favourites. St Mirren are circling the drain, an injury crisis in midfield having ripped the heart out of Stephen Robinson’s League Cup winners.
But being expected to win is not something Hearts have always been comfortable with. In their only blip in form this season, they were held by St Mirren, Dundee United, Motherwell and Kilmarnock, and lost to a struggling Aberdeen side.
Those were all games – Motherwell away aside, perhaps – that Hearts would have targeted wins from.
But, instead, it is in games against the Old Firm in which they have shone.
Not since 1960 had they won three consecutive games against their Glasgow rivals. They won the league that season.
They’re currently on a run of four, with Celtic at home on the horizon.
It could be those encounters that make the difference, but it is one such as the triumphs over Dundee and St Mirren that suggest they won’t fall away.
Twice they were a man down, twice they continued to fight and claim wins.
“Talk about statement results,” pundit Allan Preston said on Sportsound. “This is a statement result for Hearts. Down to 10 men since the 15th minute and they deserved to win by more.”
If there is such a thing as a statement draw, Hearts have managed that, too. Trailing 3-0 to Motherwell in late August, it seemed McInnes’ bubble was about to burst. Instead, they came back to draw 3-3.
They couldn’t manage the same feat against Hibernian in the Edinburgh derby just after Christmas, but they were a Raphael Sallinger super save away from a point.