Considering Kilmarnock were seeking a third consecutive win and Hearts eyeing a fifth in succession, it was hardly surprising that both managers stuck with winning line-ups other than the hosts replacing the absent Max Stryjek in goal.<\/p>\n
Kilmarnock’s previous two victories were built on clean sheets, but it remains seven years since they last managed three victories in a row without conceding.<\/p>\n
For all Hearts are a side who arrived full of confidence and swagger, their hosts’ own deficiencies played their part in all three goals.<\/p>\n
Stuart Kettlewell’s side matched the visitors for endeavour and skill in the early stages.<\/p>\n
However, poor marking for Halkett’s opener and slack passes that contributed to Braga’s double ensured Kilmarnock fall behind Hibernian, who beat Livingston, and Dundee United, who drew with Rangers, to fifth in the table.<\/p>\n
For Hearts, everything is positive. Top of the table, five wins in a row, four in succession without conceding, unbeaten in six, their only defeat in 13 games this season coming on penalties to St Mirren in the Premier Sports Cup.<\/p>\n
In Halkett, they have a commanding, and now scoring, centre-half at the top of his game now for once seemingly injury free, Devlin in central midfield showing why he has been recalled by Australia and Braga proving one of the best summer buys.<\/p>\n
It is a strong spine and, despite Hearts wanting to play down their chances after only eight league games, one that will increase the chatter about a possible title challenge the longer their impressive start continues – especially after they face Celtic next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Considering Kilmarnock were seeking a third consecutive win and Hearts eyeing a fifth in succession, it was hardly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-209478","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}