PARK HAPPY TO PUT FAITH IN YOUTH

Hearts assistant manager Donald Park has hailed the performances of homegrown youngsters Christophe Berra and Lee Wallace.

The pair both shone in the Jambos' convincing 3-0 Bank of Scotland Premier League win over Kilmarnock on Saturday.

But with the recent focus in the capital being on Hibernian's youthful side, it has gone almost unnoticed that Hearts have slowly but surely brought down the average age of their team.

The signings of Lithuanian striker Saulius Mikoliunas and Icelandic forward Halmar Thorarinsson have strengthened the Gorgie side in attack but Park is keen to extol the virtues of rookie centre-back Berra, 20, and 17-year-old left-back Wallace.

He said: "We've now become quite a young team. Steven Pressley was like a granddad in the back four on Saturday so the real positives are that we've got young players at centre-back and left-back and both played very well.

"It's not been planned. It's just the way things have worked out, but for the benefit of the future of the game in Scotland we must have a pathway for the kids to come through. If there is no pathway we'll continue to be in the mess we are in.

"Let's be selfish, it should be about us getting our kids first and foremost.

"All the borders have come down in Europe and we have to use that, but we should never forget the good qualities that we have."

The Tynecastle club take on Kilmarnock for the third time in 10 days in a Tennent's Scottish Cup fourth-round replay at Rugby Park tomorrow night and the Hearts assistant is hoping to take the weekend's form down with them to Ayrshire.

He said: "We've done our video analysis and I don't know if it was one of our best games of the season because we've played some very good games but we're highly delighted about the chances we created, the movement and the way we defended."

Park hinted that the Jambos fans might catch their first glimpse of their other Lithuanian signing Deividas Cesnauskis, who trained for the first time yesterday afternoon.

The fact that the highly-rated striker is keeping Mikoliunas out of the Lithuanian national side should encourage the Hearts faithful who watched the 22-year-old tear Killie apart at the weekend.

Park kept the door open for an early debut for the striker and said: "He played last week for Lithuania and his fitness is good so he'll be available. He hasn't been ruled in or ruled out."

Taken from sportinglife.com