Levein stunned by two-goal Kirk's enterprise

The financial problems haunting the club will not go away but the lack of harmony behind-the-scenes will surely remain muted if Levein's team can deliver this kind of result on a regular basis.

The three-goal win at Rugby Park carried Hearts still closer to that top six finish they want to confirm before the Premier League breaks into two sections in April. This went some way to consolidating their position in that group of clubs.

The first goal from Steve Fulton, just as the game entered injury time at the end of the first half, was a powerful psychological blow to Kilmarnock.

Then, before they could recover from that, Andy Kirk scored two goals in four minutes soon after half-time to secure all three points for the Edinburgh team.

Certainly Hearts were helped by individual errors by Sean Hessey and Gus McPherson as Kirk snatched his double. However, as Levein stressed afterwards: ''Andy was putting pressure on defenders all through the game. He has a tremendous attitude and is a great finisher. Also he is going to learn a lot from Gordon Durie. I can see how Gordon is passing on his experience to him as well as working very hard himself. It is a good combination we have up front.''

Kirk's finishing was superb. On the first occasion Hessey mistimed a long kick out from Antti Niemi and the 21-year-old from Belfast struck his shot past Gordon Marshall. Next, he took advantage of a moment's hesitation by McPherson, gained possession and again shot confidently past the veteran Kilmarnock goalkeeper.

The Ayrshire club were never able to test Niemi in the same way, never able to penetrate the Hearts' defence in the manner Fulton and then Kirk did as the Tynecastle team took their goals.

Part of the reason for that was Kilmarnock's inability to get players forward in support of their two main attackers - but there was also the considerable presence of Steven Pressley at the centre of the visiting defence. Pressley was a commanding figure among the youngn men who made up the back four with him.

Afterwards, he explained: ''I was the most experienced of the back four and so I took on some extra responsibility, I suppose, because it's in my personality to be an organiser and to hand out advice during a game.

''The gaffer will take some time to instil all his ideas in the team but already he has been telling us how he wants us to defend - and he is not talking only about the back four. He has a belief that when the opposition get the ball then we have to be able to defend as a team, all the way round the field. He has had a word with me and I know what he is looking for.

''What we have to do as a team now is to stay in the top six before the break comes. That is very important for us and after we achieve that we have to try to make sure that we are going to be able to challenge the Old Firm. We don't want anything less than that.''

Pressley has been in the game long enough to realise the financial constraints at the club are a problem for Levein and for everyone else at Tynecastle.

He points out, though: ''We have good young players here at the club and we have to continue to go down the road of developing young talent. Manchester United and Leeds have both shown what can be done and they have to be examples for us to follow. This was a very good result for us and an important one, but we have to try to be more consistent and we know that.''

Kilmarnock's problem is that they are being too consistent - but not always in the way Bobby Williamson, their manager, would like. This was his team's third successive home defeat, and yet they have also won their last three game away from Rugby Park. Ask Wlliamson to explain this and he cannot do so.

''It maybe has something to do with the way teams approach matches away from home in this league. They like to sit back a little and we find it difficult to get in behind them. Today, though, we simply didn't start playing. And we also gave up the ghost too easily. Yes, we lost goals to personal errors, and you can't do much about that, but we should have been able to support the front players better and we didn't do that at any time during the game.''

Next league games: Kilmar-nock - Dundee (h); Hearts - Motherwell (a)