Dundee United 3 Hearts 0

FIRST it was their wages — here it was Hearts’ challenges which were late in arriving.

But the more black and blue Craig Conway became, the more he enjoyed it as the little winger ran the Jambos ragged.

It was Conway who Michael Stewart brought down to earn his first half booking and concede the free-kick he superbly drove home to give his side the lead.

It was Conway who Eggert Jonsson crudely tackled to earn a yellow and Conway again who the Icelander barged off the ball to see red.

It was Conway who crossed for the excellent Scott Robertson to nod home United’s third after Jon Daly had made sure of the points.

And it was Conway who Laryea Kingston tried to clatter in the dying moments before mouthing angry words and gestures to him behind ref Dougie McDonald’s back.

At times it was as if all the anger and frustration the Hearts players felt after their wages fiasco last week were being taken out on the one man.

And afterwards the 23-year-old couldn’t remember another game where he had been on the end of so many fouls.

But rather than let it get to him, Conway simply took the stick as a compliment. He said: “I am sore all over but that’s part of the game, especially in my position as well.

“You are taking people on and there are going to be games where you will be fouled if you are doing well. I suppose it it is a sign that you’re playing well and you have to look at it that way.

“Obviously it is not nice when you are being kicked all the time! But it shows they can’t handle you at times.”

Conway refused to let the personal attention get to him and kept going back for more.

Kingston in particular let his frustration towards the United man show towards the end of his side’s thumping.

And Conway added: “He wasn’t too happy with me, but if you shy away from it then they are winning.

“I just kept getting the ball and got on with it. And the more you run at them the more they don’t like it.”

Conway had Hearts on the rack as early as the fifth minute when his dangerous cross was headed onto the crossbar by new dad Daly.

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And a slack mistake by Lee Wallace a couple of minutes later to let in Sean Dillon set the tone for a woeful display from Csaba Laszlo’s men. Only Slovakian keeper Marian Kello earned pass marks, pulling off a brilliant stop to keep out a Robertson header.

But even he was helpless when Robertson nudged the ball into the path of Conway six minutes from half-time, with the winger firing a magnificent 30-yard effort into his top right hand corner.

He said: “That was from watching Barry Robson! I don’t know where it came from, although we have been practising a few free-kicks.

“But we had not scored one since Barry left so I was glad to get that monkey off our backs.”

Morgaro Gomis rattled the top of Kello’s bar as United’s dominance continued.

And they moved further ahead in the 50th minute when Daly was given time to bring down Willo Flood’s cross and beat Kello from ten yards out.

Robertson capped a superb display with the third, the former Dundee man heading home from Conway’s free-kick.

Jonsson was rightly sent packing by ref McDonald for one foul too many on the United winger.

It was a performance that showed Craig Levein’s side WILL be in the mix for third spot come the end of the season, despite their slow start to the campaign.

And with five of their next seven games at home Conway admitted United cannot let their standards drop now.

He said: “We were sitting bottom of the league so you can’t say it wasn’t getting to us.

“But you have just got to keep going. We were always confident it would come right and hopefully we can build on this.

“It’s great if you can build a good base at home, and good for the fans as well, because it makes teams think they don’t want to come to Tannadice.”

Hearts need to pick up the pieces after easily the worst performance of Laszlo’s reign as boss.

The manager claimed on Friday that spirit had not been harmed by the club’s failure to pay its players, but that did not appear to be the case here.

Laszlo said: “I’m not happy about the result. If you lose 3-0 you cannot be happy. But I cannot say we are a bad team because of this. Before we had success, here we lost.

“We have to accept this and learn from this and do better in our next game.

“We lost three goals and for everyone this is very hard to accept. But life does not stop and we will go on.”