Lawrence Shankland scored twice as the hearts sailed in a 3-0 Scottish Prime Minister’s home win for Motherwell.
The Scotland striker, who is out of the contract during the summer, fasted each side of the time to place the hosts on their way to a routine victory in Tynecastle.
Alan Forrest rounded out the score in the 62nd minute while the hearts moved over their opponents on the table.
Shankland has found much harder goals to come to this season than in his previous campaigns with Edinburgh Club, who gave 24 goals each, but he opened the score after half an hour.
The 29-year-old ran into a long ball that Motherwell’s defense should have cut, checked again and fired low in the corner.
Visitors thought they were level in the 38th minute when the Callum Slattery Volley at home after a certain part, but the attempt was not allowed for offside after a long VAR review.
Instead, Shankland doubled the superiority of the armies at the sign of the clock, taking his head towards a James Penrice cross and leading the ball down the corner.
And Forrest killed the competition with the third heart just two minutes later, exploding home from home after Yan Danda had brought a good escape from goalkeeper Aston Oxborough.
What did managers say …
Heart temporary manager Liam Fox: “I will repeat what I said last week, if you put Lawrence shankkland in these types of positions and you work on how to get the ball to it, it will score goals.
“This is visible and clear from his magic here, but even before in his career.
“But not only everything is about Lawrence, there must be people who make crossings for it and run in front of the ball for it. So it’s a team effort and I think they deserve great credit over the past two weeks about how they have done and the goals they have scored, but even how difficult they had to work without the top today.”
boggy chief Michael Wimmer: “My only thing is what I always say, and I say this in Austria and Germany too, if VAR says something, then in my opinion it should be a clear mistake.
“If hanging lasts five minutes and the judge lasts five minutes again on the monitor, then for me it could not be a clear decision. So this is the only thing I mean.
“Therefore, please let the judge take responsibility and say intentionally or unintentionally and you have to be brave enough.
“Every guy makes mistakes and without worries, then it was a mistake, but if you need 10 minutes to make a decision I think it’s a long time.”
