Naismith urges Hearts to earn their stripes for semi-final showdown

Steven Naismith wants his Hearts players to show they deserve to feature in the forthcoming Scottish Gas Scottish Cupsemi-finalagainstrangers.

Thetynecastlesidewerewithout Lawrence Shankland, Beni Baningime and Calum Nieuwenhof for the trip to St Mirren and were still able to grind out a 2-1 victory.

Hearts take on Livingston on Saturday in their final match before their Hampden date in a fortnight and the manager wantsthoseinvolvednextweekend to make an impression.

Naismith said: “Everybody will now look to Livingston, but everyonewillwanttokeeptheir place in the team for the semifinal. If you secure third and move on then you can’t coast.

“If you coast then you will lose your place in the team.

“It was brilliant we managed to do that with a few academy players playing. So there is lots to motivate everybody between now and the summer.

“I think there has been comment that we have been overreliantonshanks,butsomeothers stepped up at the moment they were needed to and saw the opportunity.”

St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson felt a second successive top-six finish showed that last year’s achievement was no flash in the pan.

He said: “It’s definitely more satisfyingtogettopsixtwoyears in a row.

“You can get one-off surprises where everything goes your way, but we haven’t been out of the top six all season.

“I can't give the players, staff and board enough credit.

"What we have to do now is build the club to give ourselves moreofachancetodothismore often. If we can get in the top six two or three times out of five, it's a huge success for this club.”