Craig Halkett reveals Hearts doubt over playing vs Aberdeen and why he was always going to fight pain barrier

Craig Halkett has revealed he wasn’t 100% sure whether he’d even play against Aberdeen on Sunday, as the Hearts defender battled a back injury through his hour on the park.

The centre-back even felt the pain in the warm-up to the Premiership clash, that finished 1-1 at Tynecastle. Leighton Clarkson’s goal was cancelled out by a deflected Musa Drammeh leveller, on a day where defensive injury worries played their part in proceedings.

Stephen Kingsley was stretchered off after just over 25 minutes in the game with a hamstring injury, thrusting Halkett into action, with Frankie Kent next to him in central defence taken off minutes later with a quad problem.

Halkett managed to battle on but the pain did get to him during his time on the park. He told the Edinburgh Evening News: “Just on Saturday, the training, it was more kind of like the top of my glute and my back. It was like a nervy pain. Like a muscle injury. It was just a weird one.

“I kind of felt it Saturday and coming in early on Sunday morning. I thought I'd have been alright, but obviously once I got into the game I just felt it again a wee bit. But luckily I managed to get through it, and that's what it is. Listen, I've been desperate to play games for the last six, seven, eight weeks. I was never going to come off. It was just one I wanted to suck up and get through it.”

When asked if there was doubt over his involvement against the Dons, Halkett responded: “A wee bit, yeah. I came in earlier to see the physios. Obviously I felt better than I did on Saturday, on Sunday morning. As I warmed up before the game, I felt it a wee bit, but it was just one of those ones. It's always your luck when you feel something like that, that something unfortunately happens to someone in the starting XI and you had to come on. It was one of those ones, I just kind of got through it.

“You just wanted to get through to the end and make sure nothing else happened. This is something that hopefully will clear up within a couple of days, and I can just look forward and hopefully look to play the next couple of weeks.”

There was apparent discomfort from Kingsley when being taken off and Kent’s injury then left Halkett as an experienced head at the back. Academy product Adam Forrester was at right-back, with Daniel Oyegoke shifted in one after starting the game in that position, a makeshift backline complete with central defender Kye Rowles at left-back.

A point does keep Hearts bottom of the Premiership ahead of facing Dundee this weekend but Halkett was pleased with how the team responded to a double blow and goal conceded. He said: “It wasn't a nice one. Obviously you never like to see anyone get injured. He'll get assessed over the coming days and see how it is. Obviously, fingers crossed, it's not a bad one, but I think at the moment it wasn't that great.

“I think especially when you first make the couple of changes to your back four, within five or ten minutes they score, you're fearing the worst. Thankfully we got through it at half-time, we managed to reset, got instruction from the manager. I think you saw in the second half it was a lot better, we were settled into the game.

“We threw everyone at it and it was just one of those ones where we were really unlucky not to get that winning goal. It's obviously disappointing not to get that winner. I feel like it's been the hard luck story over the last few weeks, putting in spells of really good performance, but not getting the rewards that we deserve and not getting the results. Sunday felt a little bit different, it felt like we were going to go on and get that winning goal.

“We never, but I think if you look at the bigger picture, where we've been the last little while in the league, especially with where Aberdeen's been, we're hoping to use this point as a positive one to kick on and start climbing up the table and picking up more positive results.”

His appearance off the bench was the first time Halkett has featured under new head coach Neil Critchley, taking games played this season to five overall. He’s hoping to use the performance as a platform for a run in the team, the 29-year-old adding: “I felt like I was getting that at the start of the season. Before Steven Naismith left, I'd played three games in a row and I felt every game I was getting better.

“Obviously, through whatever it was, I found myself out of the team and it was disappointing. I've been itching to get back out there ever since I came out of the team and through the unfortunate circumstances of the day it came, so I am looking to just work my fitness up and get as much match sharpness as I can.”