HEARTS put in a disciplined performance in Iceland last night to all but secure their passage into the next round of the UEFA Cup.

Two second-half goals from Scott Severin and Darren Jackson secured the win for the Tynecastle side over the part-timers of IBV who, despite their lowly status, competed well throughout.

The side from the Vestmann Islands off the north-west coast of Iceland, where there are more puffins than people, never put Jim Jefferies side under too much pressure.

Not surprisingly, with only four and a half thousand people living there, they were never going to have much support, considering the match was moved from their home ground to the national stadium in Reykjavik, 170 miles away.

As it turned out, only a crowd of around 500 supporters, the majority of them followers of the Tynecastle club arrived.

The surreal atmosphere in the near empty 8000 stadium continued as the players came onto the pitch to the loud strains of the Star Wars theme tune at which point Hearts captain Colin Cameron did his best to stifle a grin.

At the end, it was Jefferies who was grinning all over his face as he realised his side, after a shaky start, had done enough.

The Hearts coach conceded that the win put them firmly in the driving seat to get through to the next round of the competition.

''We will settle for 2-0 but I thought we could have got a goal or two more,'' said Jefferies.

''I felt IBV were a stuffy awkward side to play against and made it difficult for us but the players did really well.

''There are never any easy games in Europe and although we have the second leg still to come, this result takes a lot of pressure off us going into the return leg at Tynecastle.''

Hearts players went into the game still reeling at criticism from Jefferies over the way they played in the 2-2 draw against St Johnstone on Sunday.

One of the main men to under-perform that evening was Darren Jackson, who started last night as if he had a point to prove.

For all their early effort, the Tynecastle side failed to carve out too many goalscoring opportunities and seemed reluctant to run at the IBV defence.

At the other end, Hearts were badly exposed on a number of occasions down the right hand side with Thomas Flogel losing his man on a number of occasions with only marginal offside decisions given by referee Stephane Moulin coming to his aid.

It took a full 15 minutes before Hearts had a decent shot on goal, with Robert Tomaschek's shot drifting just wide of IBV goalkeeper Birkir Kristinsson's right hand post. Seven minutes later, Hearts nearly took the lead when Colin Cameron, Jackson and Stevie Fulton all combined to set up Gary McSwegan, whose low right-foot shot from just outside the six-yard box was cleared off the line by Hlynur Stefansson.

McSwegan had another great chance seconds later when he was left in acres of space in the box. However, he elected to take a quick-fire header rather than control the ball before shooting, which resulted in his poor effort being easily gathered by Kristinsson in the IBV goal.

While Hearts' right-hand side looked exposed at times, things were more productive on the other flank.

Full back Gary Naysmith, who had been an injury doubt before kick-off, was doing his best to get forward, and, in doing so, gave Fulton acres of space, but the midfielder's final ball left a lot to be desired on too many occasions.

Hearts needed a bright start to the second half and got just that three minutes after the restart. It came from a Fulton free kick from 25-yards out on the Hearts' left-hand side which he played more in hope than expectation into the box.

Central defender Scott Severin, in the side in place of an injured Gordan Petric, showed great determination to bulldoze his way past two IBV defenders to guide a powerful header into a corner of the net.

It was just the tonic the Tyne-castle side required, and two minutes later they nearly increased their lead, with IBV goalkeeper Kristinsson just managing to get ahead of Cameron to a lose ball in the box.

After that, IBV sustained a short period of Hearts' pressure but like in the first half they still managed to compete well in the middle of the pack.

Hearts managed to tidy things up down their right-hand side with Flogel sticking more to his defensive duties after his indifferent first 45 minutes.

The Tynecastle side went further ahead in 67 minutes after tenacious work down the left-hand side by Fulton and Naysmith, which resulted in the midfielder playing a low ball into the box.

Cameron was odds-on to get to it first but somehow managed to miss it completely, but the pace on the ball meant it continued its path across the box to Jackson, who fired a low left-foot shot into the bottom of the IBV net.

IBV did have the ball in the net with 15 minutes to go but the strike by Sigurdsson was rightly chopped off for off side.

Severin admitted that scoring a goal in his first ever appearance in Europe had been the highlight of his career to date.

He revealed that yesterday morning in training he was being given a ribbing from his team mates at his inability to score from the set pieces they were practising at training. The practise eventually paid off.

Severin said: ''This is obviously the best moment of my career to date and I was a bit surprised to be even playing as I thought Grant Murray may have got the nod in front of me. As it turned out Steven Pressley helped me through the game and I'm delighted at the way things went.''

IBV - Kristinsson, Gudmundsson, Aleksic, Stevansson, I Sigurfsson, Bragason, Johnnesson, Vifarsson, Jonsson, Mileta, Almarsson. Substitutes - Gufmundsson, Antonsson, M Sigurfsson, Johansson, Moller, Olafsson, Dorvaldsson.

Hearts - Niemi, Flogel, Pressley, Severin, Naysmith, Tomaschek, Makel, Fulton, Cameron, Jackson, McSwegan. Substitutes - Rousset, Murray, Locke, Juanjo, O'Neil, Kirk, Simpson.

Referee - S Moulin.