Gary Mackay: Wallace showed the Braveheart attitude

The player in question is Lee Wallace – on Saturday, I thought he played in a manner that was way beyond his years. As usual, he did a great job at left-back but I was particularly impressed with him when injuries to Hearts' two centre-halves meant he had to go and play at left centre-back.

I've known Lee since he was a ten-year-old and I've seen him play as a left winger, left-back and central midfielder, but I've never seen him play centre-back before. He acquitted himself ever so well in a position that was alien to him and deserves a special mention. He showed all his attributes – he has decent pace, and he's aggressive, always willing to go and attack the ball. I was hugely impressed with the maturity of his performance.

The fact he had to play at centre-back was only down to our worrying injury list getting even longer.

Sometimes things run smoothly for you in football week to week but, on Saturday, it seemed everything that could go wrong did. The management team certainly had their work cut out. They had so many different situations to contend with from the two centre-halves getting injured, to Larry Kingston getting sent off. You could give somebody 100 attempts and I don't think they'd guess that you could end the game with a back four of Jason Thomson, Eggert Jonsson, Lee Wallace and David Obua.

You could see the three of them – Jim Jefferies, Billy Brown and Gary Locke – discussing how they were going to set things up. It was really interesting to watch them all interacting so frantically trying to get things sorted. However, by full-time they had certainly got their reward with a third win in a row. It was great to see the enthusiasm of the three of them as they went across the pitch at the end of the match to applaud the supporters. Their delight was plain to see and they obviously appreciated the backing that they got from the hardcore group of fans who made the journey north. I have to take my hat off to those fans because noon really was a crazy kick-off time.

Apart from Lee, I'd also like to praise Janos Balogh. Over the years, Hearts have been fortunate to have been blessed with good goalkeepers. From my time as a player, to Jim's first spell as a manager and then right through to Craig Gordon, we've never been found wanting when it comes to shot-stoppers. Marian Kello has been great for us recently and I'm sure that would have put a bit of extra pressure on Balogh coming back into the team but I thought Balogh did really well. He handled everything that was thrown at him although I'm sure he'll be the first one to credit the spirit of the players in front of him who really stood up to be counted in what was always going to be a tough match.

We now have another two hard away games against Dundee United and Motherwell before we host Hibs. If we can pick something up from each of the away games and our home form continues in the way the last couple of games have gone then we could yet end up in a health position.

We're now only seven points behind Hibs but that's not something I'm looking at with any real significance. You've just got to concern yourself with the team directly above you in the league and, at the moment, that team is Motherwell. If we take care of our own results then that will take us up the league in the course of time. We've just got to concentrate on keeping close to the likes of Dundee United, Motherwell and Hibs until we play them so that these games become six-pointers. We've had a nice return of nine points out of three games and, if we can get something similar from that in the next three games, then everyone will be delighted.

Dons got Larry sent off

I REALLY felt sorry for Larry Kingston on Saturday – in my opinion the Aberdeen players got him sent off.

I thought the referee was just going to let the whole situation die down, I didn't think he was going to show any card.

But he seemed to get a bit intimidated by the Aberdeen players that ran towards him, Zander Diamond in particular. It wasn't nice to see, it's not something that happened in my playing days.

The one thing I would never do is run up and pressure a referee into getting a fellow player sent off.