Robbie Neilson is pleased his Hearts players are showing the benefit of the World Cup break after they restarted their league campaign with a win.
It was an action-packed affair at Tynecastle as Hearts saw off relegation-threatened Kilmarnock, with goals from Josh Ginnelly and a brace from league joint-top scorer Lawrence Shankland sealing the three points despite a goal for Killie with fifteen minutes to play. It means the Jambos are back in to fourth spot, just one behind Aberdeen who fell to a late defeat against Celtic.
And while Neilson believes his top stars such as goal-machine Shankland have benefited from a period of rest, the Gorgie gaffer wants consistency to be the key and for his side to see out games in a calmer manner.
He told BBC Sportsound: "I thought we were exceptional in the first half. We weren't so good in the second and we have to rectify that by taking it through the whole game.
"To Kilmarnock's credit, they were more aggressive and got after us. We overcomplicated things a bit, playing in tight areas when we should have been in behind them. There's still a lot of things for us to learn.
"We had 25 games in thirteen or fourteen weeks so we're asking guys plays to Thursday-Sunday over and over again until the World Cup break and we've had injuries that meant we weren't able to rotate...getting a best of rest and back to Saturday-Saturday will be good for these players."
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