Ross County Don Cowie boss praised Yan Dhanda's performance in his side's 2-1 win over Heart of Midlothian.

The midfielder is set to leave the Staggies in the summer and join Hearts having agreed to a pre-contract. While not assisting or scoring the 25-year-old impressed in the middle of the park for County and did play a key role in the opening goal as the Premiership strugglers secured an important win.

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"I thought Yan was excellent," former Hearts player Cowie said. "His pass for the first goal was the bit of quality that you want to see from him in a game that's really tight.

"His work rate was superb, and I was absolutely delighted with how he played."

County won thanks to goals on either side of half-time from Simon Murray. Hearts boss Steven Naismith spoke of the team's poor defending costing his side in the defeat. Cowie praised his team's attitude throughout the game.

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"Any three points is massive," he said. "We were playing against a very good team, comfortably third in the league for a reason, but I'm proud of the group for standing up to that and getting three points.

"Our work rate and togetherness, and people putting their body on the line. I would have loved to have seen the game out with a clean sheet, but overall I'm happy with the three points."

He added: "You've got to take heart form it and realise that Hearts are an excellent team. Beating them here has to give us confidence going into the last eight games of the season.

"We've taken eight points at home, and I'm really happy with that, but now we've got to transfer that to away games because we've got two very tough games coming up."