Gary Mackay: Rudi sends strong message to doubters - including me

As I touched on when he first returned last month, I was concerned about Rudi Skacel coming back to Hearts.

That was nothing to do with the boy's quality or what he had done for Hearts in his first spell - it was simply the age-old worry about players struggling when they go back for a second spell at a club where they have previously enjoyed some success and the fact he wasn't necessarily a Jim Jefferies signing.

But sometimes you have to show a bit of humility in football and I have to say, it's a case of so far so good as far as his return goes.

All sets of supporters seem to look for a scapegoat or a boo-boy or whatever but, equally, they also want players they have an affinity with and Rudi, given what he achieved in his first spell, certainly fits that bill. Although we've have always had some good players, we've never really had a proper talismanic figure for a few years now - possibly even since Rudi left the club. He's a bubbly, effervescent personality and anybody who meets him talks about him being a right good lad. He's the type of character you want your football club to be identified with.The technique he showed for two of his goals in particular against St Mirren was outstanding.

We've already spoken about Calum Elliot and Kevin Kyle as a source of goals and Billy Brown tells me Stephen Elliott's got goals in him, so for Rudi to hit such good scoring form is a massive bonus for Hearts. The fact it's coincided with Marius Zaliukas returning to the side suddenly leaves everything looking a lot rosier in the garden than it did a few weeks ago. And perhaps most significantly we've got the monkey off our backs in terms of notching a long-awaited home win. I spoke last week about the need for Hearts to make Tynecastle a place for the opposition to fear coming to again and you can't do that any better than by winning 3-0. I'm trying not to get carried away, because I don't like to judge how things are shaping up until everyone's played each other once. But if we can beat Kilmarnock at home on Sunday, that would see us head to Easter Road to play Hibs on the back of three wins on the spin. The mental edge that would give us going into the derby would be massive. For all that Saturday's win was pretty comprehensive, I'd take any kind of win over Killie because they've been playing some good stuff under Mixu Paatelainen.

We got a great start against St Mirren, but that in itself can bring on the pressure of extra expectation from the Hearts supporters because they then hope you can go on and rack up a cricket score. As someone who has played in a Hearts jersey at Tynecastle I can tell you that there is a real demand on you from the supporters - and the fans are entitled to have high demands, may I add - but sometimes it's easier said than done to meet those demands as a player.

Over the years, Hearts fans had grown accustomed to beating teams like St Mirren 3-0 at home but the air of authority we used to have at Tynecastle hasn't been evident over the past few seasons. So the players deserve real credit for putting the poor run of home form behind them with such an emphatic win, but now the next challenge is to try to maintain it against Kilmarnock to ensure we head across the city to face our old rivals in the best possible fettle.

n I'D like to single out Hearts youngster Gordon Smith for praise. Gordon was one of a few young players that came to work on improving their fitness at Meadowbank with myself and Bert Logan over the summer and it looks like he is reaping the benefits. He showed a great attitude and worked really hard to build himself up. Having had a taste of the first team last season, there's always a chance that young players might struggle if they are subsequently sent out on loan to a lower-league club, but Gordon has been absolutely brilliant since joining Stirling Albion on loan. He's been banging in the goals and got another couple at the weekend, so full credit to the lad. He's certainly going about things the right way if he wants to make a go of things at Hearts.

Joined-up thinking required

I've been reading a lot recently about talk of possible league reconstruction in Scotland, but I hope the people responsible for the decision-making realise that any switch to a 16-team league won't automatically improve youth development in Scotland. I worry that the powers-that-be may be blinkered into thinking that increasing the size of our Premier League is going to solve our country's problems overnight. It may or may not be a step in the right direction, but it will take a whole lot more than simply increasing the size of our top flight before we start producing players comparable with the likes of Souness and Dalglish.