Hearts defender Craig Halkett has revealed the pain of missing out on last season’s league title to Celtic still lingers, admitting the disappointment has been difficult to shake.
The title race went down to the final day, with Martin O’Neill’s Celtic side clinching the championship in dramatic fashion at Celtic Park to deny Hearts what had looked like a fairytale finish.
In the aftermath of the decisive encounter, frustration was evident at Tynecastle, with refereeing calls and the post-match pitch invasion among the talking points raised following the defeat.
Halkett, who was forced to watch from the sidelines after suffering a serious injury that ruled him out for the closing weeks of the campaign and continues to keep him out, says the outcome remains hard to accept.
Speaking to Edinburgh News, he said: “It was hard, because you felt like it was supposed to happen.
“The boys put in a great performance, but after the result there were so many different emotions.
“We were angry, not just about the way that game finished but maybe about how the first couple of weeks leading up to it had gone.
“I think it was just a combination of loads of things not going our way. It was hard not to feel a wee bit angry and frustrated.
“That’s football, though. It was a hard one to take and it’s probably one of those runs that you never really get over.
“During that last week of the season, everything that could have gone against us did go against us. Things can go for the other team as well, but that’s football.
“That’s just what happens and you’ve got to take it on the chin. The injuries we got at the end of the season didn’t help.
“Even in the last game of the season, when we start the second half and Beni [Baningime] goes down, you just think that’s another thing that’s gone against you.
“It changes the outcome of the game. It was a tough one to take.”
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2 Comments
Understandable given that for a number of senior players at the club this was their main chance of title success and to have it ripped from their grasp by a catalogue of horrendous refereeing decisions in the last days of the season is quite simply unbearable.
“Ripped from their grasps by a catalogue of horrendous away performances”
There, fixed that for you.