Hearts skipper shrugs off Langfield slur after Miller joust

But Langfield believed the defender was fortunate to avoid a red card having been cautioned by referee William Collum for persistent fouling. The Dons goalkeeper said: "Big Lee was very harshly treated by them and the referee was very, very lenient on the boy Berra.

"Lee got knocked about silly and it was frustrating. I'm not a striker but when someone is kicking lumps out of you you're going to struggle and I thought the referee could have been a bit stronger."

Berra, however, is irked by the comments. He emerged from the Hearts dressing-room on Saturday sporting scratches down the front of his face which proved Miller, a former Tynecastle striker, gave as good as he got.

"I think it's the other way round actually," said Berra. "Miller conned the ref quite a bit. Langfield can say all he wants but we got the three points. If they want to spit the dummy out, that's fine. We'll just get on with it. We went to a very difficult place and won. That's all that matters.

"It was a very physical game, especially with Miller up front for them. He used to play for us and tried his hardest.

"We've got a bit of rivalry going with Aberdeen. They think they're better than us and we think we're better than them. That's football for you but I would say we were the better team on Saturday."

Saulius Mikoliunas also incurred the wrath of Collum at Pittodrie. He was booked for diving following a penalty-box tackle from J
effrey de Visscher but television pictures proved conclusively that the winger was impeded.

"I knew there would be contact because Miko told me there was," said Hearts' interim manager Stephen Frail, who revelled in the character shown to prise three points from Aberdeen. "They had gone 13 games undefeated before Saturday but we created five or six really good chances and might have won by a bigger margin," he said. "We played well, we fought for each other, we were gritty when we needed to be and that's what gets you results.

"The lads have always wanted to win and do well for this club but they maybe just lost their way a bit. Now we have our own back-to-back league wins and we can really look forward to Wednesday night's CIS Cup semi-final against Rangers."

Taken from the Scotsman