Hearts: Losing Jamie Hamill a blow, says Gary Locke

Hearts manager Gary Locke admits it's "a blow" losing Jamie Hamill for next week's Edinburgh derby following the stand-in captain's red card against Ross County.

Hamill provoked a touchline tussle which involved County boss Derek Adams after scoring a penalty in Hearts' win.

"He'll now miss next week so it's a hard one," Locke told BBC Scotland.

"To be fair, there were too many bodies in front of me so it'd be difficult to pass comment on it."

Adams (bottom left) ended up on the turf

Dale Carrick scored a late second for Locke's side, who celebrated a win at the end of a week which saw the club take a major step towards coming out of administration.

"I'm delighted with the response of the players going down to 10 men," Locke explained. "They kept playing and I was delighted to see us get a second goal.

"We thoroughly deserved the three points.

"It was a penalty, from where I was. It was a foul. Hamill's tucked it away very nicely and then they've pushed forward. It was a great counter-attack and a great finish from Dale Carrick at the end.

"It's been a good week, a really good week, a really positive week. I felt it was important at the end just to show our appreciation to the supporters because you see the crowd that we had today; magnificent turnout.

"When people look at games, they might think that they're meaningless and look at the support we had.

"It's been a good week for everyone connected with the football club and it was important that we topped it off with a win at the end of the week."

Businesswoman Anne Budge aims to complete a takeover of Hearts after creditors approved the sale of shares and she took in the victory over County at Tynecastle.

"Delighted for Anne, she's a fan and she's the same as myself; she just wants to see Hearts winning," Locke said.

Though relegation had been confirmed before the Scottish Premiership split, Hearts are on a four-match unbeaten run going in to their final meeting with Hibernian this season, with Terry Butcher's side only three points clear of the relegation play-off spot.

"It'll be a good game," added Locke. "It's a game that everybody looks forward to.

"Our fans will go down there in huge numbers again. If we put in a similar performance to today, hopefully we can get a favourable result."