After the glee of not only beating Hearts, but doing so in injury-time and with a comical goal wears down, I reckon those at Fir Park will consider today - lucky as it was - much more significant for our medium-term future than any of the last five wins.

Obviously our situation at Christmas made getting wins by any means at all an absolute priority and we can be relieved to have done that.

But we were only playing dross and only beating them (usually) by the odd goal at that.

Hearts - even with some injuries - are a different prospect. They are a genuine European contender, are physically strong and have a handful of very good players.

Now even if we'd lost a late goal today, and being honest the game could have gone either way, we completely matched them for 90 minutes. Despite playing a side which was not hopeless like recent opposition, we fought when we had to fight, played football when we could and carved out several chances.

We shouldn't get carried away but today was real evidence that not only might next season not be totally miserable, it could really be worth watching.