Fears eased over Hibs defender Michael Hart's hamstring injury

The defender went down clutching his right leg in the home match with Rangers on Sunday but Hughes was relieved when the club physio rated Hart's injury as a grade one – the least serious – and put a timeframe of around ten days to two weeks for his recovery.

Scotland's matches against Lithuania and Liechtenstein at the beginning of September mean that next weekend is free for Hibs so Hart is expected to miss just one match before returning to the squad in time to face Inverness.

Hughes said: "We thought that it looked a bad one at the time but I have spoken to the physio and it is a grade one, which basically means that we expect it to take a week or at the most two weeks to recover from. He will miss Saturday's game against St mirren but the following weekend is free for us because Scotland are playing so that will give him that extra bit of time to get himself fit.

"I feel for Michael to be honest because I think that he has settled into the side really well and was really beginning to show what he is capable of. But he's old enough and experienced enough to know his own body now and he knew that he had to come off.

"Hopefully it won't be too long before he's back training and it should just be the one game that he misses."

Meanwhile, Hughes revealed that Derek Riordan was set to return to training today, despite taking a heavy knock to his knee at the weekend.

"We thought that it might have been a twist but when we got him into the dressing room it was more a clash of the knees than anything else," said Hughes