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Head coach Ian Cathro said sorry for Hearts’ pitiful Scottish Cup exit at the hands of city rivals Hibs – then slammed his players for not showing any fight in the 3-1 loss.
The Gorgie outfit were two-nil down at half-time to Jason Cummings and Grant Holt strikes as the hosts came racing out of the blocks.
Andrew Shinnie made it three in the second half before Esmael Goncalves scrambled in a consolation after seeing his penalty saved by Ofir Marciano.
A furious Cathro, who signed nine new players in January, concedes that Hearts have been brought crashing back down to earth following that defeat.
He said: “We’ve made a very big mistake in thinking quite simply, over-estimating where we are.
“We’ve lost the game because we didn’t have the level of fight, didn’t win the second ball, didn’t have the speed.
“We didn’t turn up to the fight at the start of the game. That’s something we need to accept.
“It’s not that we don’t possess those qualities. But we’ve overestimated where we are.
“We can be quite certain we will make it up to people. We will do that by never, ever, ever, ever allowing even five minutes of the game where the opponent win things easily – dropping balls, loose balls, long balls, second balls.
“We can never, ever go through even five minutes of a game the way it was in the first half there.
“We’ve caused a lot of people who love the club to hurt. I’m sorry for that.”
Cathro, whose side return to Premiership action against Patrick Thistle this weekend, added: “We learned lots of lessons. More in this game.
“We know where we want to go. We know this is an amazing football club with tremendous ambition and leadership, a very bright future.
“But now it’s going to be a bit further in the future. We’ve taken a couple of steps back tonight.
“We’ve caused a lot of people who love the club to hurt. I’m sorry for that.”
