Naismith sees improvement in Jambos youngsters

Hearts B boss Steven Naismith feels lessons are being learned among his young squad.

The Wee Jambos thrashed bottom-of-the-table Dalbeattie Star 4-0 on Saturday, Makenzie Kirk and Callum Sandilands both netting braces at Ferguson Park. The result pushes the club up to 13th in the Lowland League standings.

“We’ve continued on from the two previous games which was important,” said Naismith. “I feel as a group we have learned and in the last three performances you can see we are progressing. We have won them all, but they have been different kind of wins. Against Gretna we had to really defend our lead, but the other games we have played some very good attacking football.

“We have come up against a couple of teams who sit in which can be difficult, but we’ve had the solutions in terms of players positioning and timing of runs, but we’ve been clinical in the final third. That is all very pleasing. This isn’t just a big step up for everybody, it’s some of the boys’ first year in full time football and it’s the first year out of academy football for others, so you’re dealing with lots of scenarios with a lot of very young players.

Steven Naismith

“It was a run of fixtures where we felt we were playing against sides at the bottom end of the table in games you want to be putting on a show. I think for most of the season there hasn’t been many games where I have not been happy with the effort or the work rate. In the first quarter of the season, we lost a lot of games on individual errors. So, when we came into this run of fixtures we were hoping the players had progressed, which they have, and we made the right choices in games which allows us to get the points. Out of possession, no matter who you play, you need to be hard to beat as a group."

Elsewhere, Civil Service Strollers missed the opportunity to go level on points with Rangers B as they fell to a 2-1 defeat at Gala Fairydean Rovers.