Blair Spittal smells chance for first Hearts start as he reveals Steven Naismith's pre-season competition prize

Blair Spittal got a whiff of success when he won a bottle of aftershave on Hearts' pre-season trip to Tenerife.

But it’s on the park the new Jambos midfielder wants to sniff out his big chance - particularly with Europa League qualifiers against Viktoria Plzen just a matter of days away. Spittal admits his only previous experience of the European football stank. He was part of the Motherwell side who were dumped out of the Conference League before the end of July having been humiliated by League of Ireland side Sligo Rovers in 2022. Now he’s desperate to make amends.

The 28-year-old is hoping for a first start in maroon away to Falkirk in the League Cup on Saturday afternoon - and another chance to impress Steven Naismith having won the pre-season ‘know your team mates’ competition in Tenerife. He said: "Aye, me and Frankie Kent won it. A good reward - we got a bottle of aftershave. I don't know whether to take that as a compliment, or whether the manager’s tried to tell us that we stink!

“Coming to this club I know the expectations on the team. It's a bit tough at the start in terms of everybody might not be happy getting their minutes. But once the European campaign does start and we've got cup runs etc, that we want to do well in, you'll hopefully see the strength of the squad that we've got.

“When I was at Motherwell, I went into a team that had got European football. It was obviously short-lived in terms of Sligo. So that wasn't a good experience. But you sort of learn from that in terms of when you do play against these teams that it's important that you use the ball when you get it.

"Big regrets from that Sligo game. That was my first couple of games at Motherwell. So obviously it didn't go as well as what we'd