THE bad feeling which lay in the pit of my stomach on Saturday night wasn't just caused by the 3-0 defeat at Tynecastle.

I'm always the first to put my hands up when my team is deservedly beaten and some of the Hearts boys were worthy of their win. But I said some. Not all of them.

Hearts were 3-0 up and playing out the game for a win and still some of them were diving and trying to get our players booked. What is that all about?

I won't name them but they will know exactly who I'm talking about.

Even some of their own players admitted they dive about in training so they weren't surprised by their antics. And that's their team-mates saying that.

It's the one thing which annoys me more than anything else in football. There were so many of them at it on Saturday and it infuriated me. I was not a happy man.

You watch the Spanish teams on television and they are at it all the time.

Surely we don't want to see it catching on in Scottish football. I thought we were all too honest for that.

While there is not one player who can claim to be an angel, we all hate diving. It's cheating - as simple as that.

And to do it when you are 3-0 up is a disgrace. I hope they are proud of themselves.

Unfortunately, it doesn't alter the fact we were not great against Hearts. I hit a post in the first minute but even after that we had chances to score and didn't take them.

Hearts ran up the park and scored and their second killed us off.

That's why Hearts are second in the league and we are eighth. We just don't take enough of our chances.

We are now looking at other teams doing us favours to get us into the top six but the manager is as confident as the players that we can do it.

We don't have a game on Saturday but don't think for a second the gaffer is going to give us a nice week off to recharge the batteries.

He will be working us hard. It will be double sessions all the way to keep our fitness levels as high as possible.

Nobody will be more determined to finish in the top six than Stephen Craigan who has had a fantastic season. If I could vote for a Motherwell guy for Player of the Year, my cross would go beside his name.

For both club and Northern Ireland he has been the model of consistency. I've watched him play against some top players while on international duty and he has been brilliant.

But as I can't vote for Stephen, I think I'm going to vote for Shaun Maloney.

I've enjoyed my battles with him. He can take a kick without bitching about it and for a wee fella he can give it out as well and I have no problem with that.

Shaun has all the skill in the world, which he showed on Sunday by scoring an outstanding goal.

However, I still think Jim Hamilton's effort against Celtic will be goal of the season - and not just because he's my team-mate.

The voting forms will come in soon and it's always a source of debate in the dressing room as to who we would vote for.

There are a few candidates for Young Player of the Year but I'm going for Scott Brown at Hibs. I think he's fantastic.

He's a brilliant player who gives everything he's got in all the games I've seen him in. He's a wee buzz-bomb who isn't afraid to get right in the faces of some big-name players and you have to admire that.

And he isn't the kind of guy who will cheat anyone. I wish I could say the same about every player in the SPL.

Taken from the Daily Record