His first half-volley separated two sides who were otherwise guilty of repeated negligence in front of goal. By the time this one was reaching its frantic conclusion, chances were being haplessly discarded at either end. Even the usual chaos caused by Kevin Kyle, on as a substitute for Kilmarnock, could not match the feat performed only by Driver in a match slow to gather momentum.

It wasn’t one of Tynecastle’s most eagerly anticipated nights, with European football on the box and many Kilmarnock fans understandably reluctant to make the journey. Their hold-up in a motorway traffic jam had led to Saturday’s postponement of this fixture, which, perhaps fittingly, opened in rather a pedestrian manner.Only Driver’s return from injury was cause for any real enthusiasm. The young winger was part of an attacking trident with which Hearts hoped to support Gary Glen.

Injury and illness meant that each side were without their first-choice goalkeeper, but it was the Kilmarnock replacement, Mark Brown, who had the busier first half. The player signed on loan from Celtic had to be alert, albeit mostly from long range, particularly when swerving shots by Suso Santana and Craig Thomson had to be beaten away. Not that there was anything he could do about the effort that beat him after half an hour.

Hearts’ shortage of strikers is well-documented, but in Driver, they have a player whose incisive manoeuvres in the final third can go some way to compensating. As if to underline the point, he was the man who brought an emphatic end to what had seemed like an interminable game of head tennis in the visiting team’s box. When the ball looped out to the edge of the area, Tim Clancy hesitated and the England under-21 player stepped in. His first touch controlled the ball, his second thrashed a right-foot volley high into the net.

Glen might have added to the advantage, but he glanced a lame header over the top, a miss matched by David Fernández at the other end. A minute was left of the first half when the lively Conor Samman, who had tested the goalkeeper with an early snap shot, flicked a throw on to the Spanish striker. From less than six yards, his header missed the target.

Kilmarnock opened the second period brightly, but the biggest threat continued to be at the other end. When Craig Thomson’s long diagonal ball seemed to wrongfoot the Kilmarnock defence, Santana somehow found himself alone with the ball. His header back across goal was decent but Brown was down quickly to save.

By the time Michael Stewart was turning over Santana’s expert cutback, Jim Jefferies, the Kilmarnock manager, was recognising the need for change. And inevitably, Kyle returned. The big striker, whose Scotland call-up was ruined by a knee problem, almost made an immediate impact when his looping header drifted wide of an upright. Then, with Kyle provoking panic in the box, Hearts’ defenders almost forgot to mark Frazer Wright. His header was plucked from the sky by Marian Kello.

Their approach was in contrast to that of Hearts who worked their way into the box, with Santana more than holding his own in the company of Driver. On one occasion, he had the entire Kilmarnock defence backtracking as he faked and stepped over a rolling ball before poking it narrowly wide of the left-hand post.

Heart of Midlothian (4-2-3-1): M Kello — C Thomson, J Gonçalves, I Bouzid, L Wallace — M Stewart, R Palazuelos — S Santana, D Obua, A Driver (sub: D Kucharski, 90min) — G Glen (sub: C Nade, 74). Substitutes not used: J MacDonald, I Black, J Thomson, A Novikovas, J Stewart.

Kilmarnock (4-4-2): M Brown — T Clancy, S Ford, F Wright, G Hay (sub: G Owens, 85) — M Taouil, J Hamill, G Skelton (sub: D Invincible, 62), C Bryson — C Sammon, D Fernández (sub: K Kyle, 55). Substitutes not used: C Bell, R O’Leary, I Flannigan, L Kelly. Booked: Clancy.

Referee: W Collum.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk