The celebrations that followed Blair Spittal's final strike may have been dulled somewhat in the stands when, as soon as the ball had been placed into the far corner, the midfielder immediately felt the back of his leg.

'Oh oh!' the collective thought.

The summer signing has been the team's best performer in recent games, highlighting exactly why Heart of Midlothian were keen to bring him to Tynecastle Park after a fine campaign for Motherwell. His performance in the 4-0 win over St Mirren was perhaps his best in maroon and white.

Therefore, it would have been typical for him to pick up an injury but as he sat down in the media suite following the game on Saturday he allayed any fears or concerns.

"Just a bit of cramp," he confirmed what Neil Critchley suggested. "It's managed to ease off now."

He added: "Just as well we were winning at the time and we'd made all our subs!"

Critchley was effusive in his praise of the 28-year-old he felt "epitomised" the team's performance. Only Beni Baningime had more pressures than Spittal during the match.

"I thought he was energetic, pressing," the head coach said. "I like his mentality."

The energy and pressing were something Critchley asked of the team. One of his messages during the week was of Hearts being a team that others hate playing against. Of making it as difficult as possible for the opposition.

As poor as St Mirren were, the way Hearts went about their business out of possession contributed to that.

"It was all about when we lose the ball that we don't give them an opportunity to hit us on the counter," Spittal explained. "Close that space well.

"We worked on certain things, certain triggers throughout the week. When St Mirren got the ball that's where we're going to hit them. I thought that a big part of the game against St Mirren is to make sure that you go out and you're picking up the second balls. We managed to do that. Our distances within the whole team were good.

"A really good performance but we're not going to get too carried away."

Spittal was lined up on the left of an attacking 4-4-2 with Yan Dhanda on the other flank and Lawrence Shankland and Kenneth Vargas leading the line. With the team at home, Critchley wanted them to be "on the front foot" and "to be positive" which meant getting "attacking players on the pitch".

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The setup provided an opportunity for Spittal to take up different positions and go looking for the ball rather than simply being stuck out on the wing.

"I'm not going into it too much but it was all about picking up pockets of space," he said. "It was me and Yan behind Kenneth and Lawrence. They managed to stretch the game well for us and managed to pin St Mirren's full-backs both back.

"It allowed our full-backs to give us the width and myself and Yan to pick up pockets of space. We know that if we get on the half-turn we can hopefully create things.

"I think the way that we played and pressed St Mirren, I think it allowed us to be on the front foot right from the off.

"We didn't really give them an opportunity to hit us in counters as well, which is something that we spoke about. Through this season we've been a wee bit open in transition. We managed to suffocate the game well and make sure that we were in control of the game throughout."

The hope now is the team use the win over St Mirren as a launchpad for the rest of the season, starting this week. The next two games - Omonia at home in the Conference League and away t bottom-of-the-table Hibs - can help continue to turn the mood around the club to be more positive and build some momentum.

There is an opportunity to demonstrate the capricious nature of football. Should the next week go well the feeling amongst the club's support will be transformed.

"It's something for us to build on, definitely," Spittal said. "We're still in a position that we don't want to be at the table, so we've managed to give ourselves a good start under a new manager.

"The manager came in and he just said that the things that we're in control of, obviously hard work, commitment, etc. Those are the things that we can control. He says it's going to take time for it to happen but it was important that we went out there and started well and we got the fans behind us.

"We've not given them a lot to shout about this season so far but I think when we put in performances like that and we start the way we did, it gets the full stadium together and the fans get right behind us."