James Keatings had a companion on the bus back from Kirkcaldy on Saturday.
This refers at first to the match ball which the Hearts forward was obliged to stow in his bag as a reward for his hat trick against Raith Rovers, but also Brad McKay. The defender had teased his team-mate all the way to Fife and had plenty to say on the journey home too.
Keatings had been "nervous", he said. The 22-year-old had rejected the offer of a contract extension at Hamilton Academical but had still to make an impression at Tynecastle this season. He had started in only one competitive match before the weekend - a 4-1 defeat by Livingston.
That had given McKay enough material to fill his time on the way to Fife; Keatings was teased for looking anxious, for worrying about making the most of his big chance, a league start against Raith. It almost passed him by that McKay had also predicted his new team-mate to score.
"I had a wee joke with James on the bus. I was calling him the nervous man," said the Hearts defender, whose side face Stenhousemuir in the League Cup this evening. "I was winding him up, saying: 'you're nervous about today'. But I told him he would score. He scored three."
Keatings might expect to get the chance to register a few more tonight, with Stenhousemuir having lost five goals to SPFL League 1 rivals Stirling Albion at the weekend. Not everyone is concerned about a repeat, though.
"This is a great game to have so soon after the disappointment of Saturday as there will be no issues in lifting anyone," said Scott Booth, the Stenhousemuir manager. "There was lots of good stuff in the game against Stirling and we need to build on that against Hearts."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article