Hearts player backed to overcome 'significant' injury that has put early end to impressive season

Neil Critchley has backed Hearts youngster Finlay Pollock to bounce back in a strong manner after a season ending injury.

The playmaker has turned into a striker out on loan in the Championship with Raith Rovers. It has been a turbulent season in Kirkcaldy with two changes of manager but now under Barry Robson, the Scotland youth international has started to thrive with six goals in 25 games at Stark’s Park.

He now returned to Hearts prematurely as a nasty hamstring injury brings an end to his season. Critchley has met with the 20-year-old and has faith that he will be able to response in a positive manner to the setback.

Hearts backing for Pollock

Critchley said: “I’ve just seen Finlay on his crutches. It's the first time I've actually met him and spoken to him one-to-one in that way. It's not the type of scenario you want to be meeting a young player coming in on crutches.

“He's had a meeting on Friday afternoon with a specialist to decide basically his course of rehab. It's obviously a significant hamstring injury and then we have to decide after he's spoken to the specialist and with our medical team where we go with that. It’s really unfortunate because he's just been speaking to him then and he's had a really good season.

“Lots going on in loan, changing managers, changing of position, style and that's what you have to navigate and that's exactly why you send players out on loan. He was playing extremely well, performing, scoring goals and it's an untimely injury.

“It can happen, it's unfortunate because he was in a really good place. But again, injuries are part and parcel of football and you have to be able to overcome disappointment and injuries is one of the things you have to overcome. Finlay, from his temperament and his mentality which a lot of people tell me at the club he's outstanding, I'm sure he'll be fine.”

Robson said on the impact on Raith to the Courier: “We’ve not had much luck with strikers since I’ve been here. We’ve just seen Lewis return recently and now we’ve lost Finlay, and obviously we’re already without Jack [Hamilton] and Callum [Smith]. So, it’s not been easy to try and freshen up our attack and mix and match them and help them, and be even more aggressive as a team.”