Hearts legend Gary Mackay feels the club's latest batch of young players have been instrumental in turning around their season.
Gordon Smith, 18, netted on his first start as Hearts extended an unbeaten run to five matches when they drew 1-1 at Easter Road on Sunday, while fellow teenagers Scott Robinson and Craig Thomson have also established themselves along with 20-year-old David Templeton.
Mackay, who made the first of his 640 Hearts appearances as a 16-year-old, said: "Craig Thomson, until his injury, had been as consistent as anybody this year. The boy Robinson has come in, Gordon Smith came in, Templeton has come in and they have just freshened it up and given a different impetus to the team."
Mackay believes they have given the team a new lease of life to take them within four points of fourth-placed Dundee United in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.
He added: "They are not the finished articles yet but they have given the guys around about them a lift."
Hearts face a tough test of their improved form when they face Aberdeen at Pittodrie in the fourth round of the Active Nation Scottish Cup on Saturday.
The Dons won 1-0 at Dundee United on Saturday to move back into the top half of the SPL.
"It's a hard, hard game," Mackay said. "Our record at Pittodrie when I played was not great. We got hammered in a cup tie up there 5-1.
"I watched Aberdeen on Saturday and in the first half they showed a lot of the qualities that Motherwell showed at the start under Mark McGhee; great mobility, great legs in the midfield getting forward, and that was without Lee Miller, who is a big, big player for them.
"So it will be a really difficult game for Hearts. You have to beat the best teams at some point but you wouldn't have picked that tie, that's for sure. But it was a hard ask at Easter Road on Sunday and the players handled it. It was a hard task to beat Celtic at Tynecastle and the players handled it."
