REMEMBER Craig Levein when he was the Scotland manager? Remember no strikers? The grim performances and the football to make the eyes bleed?

Well, if you care to cast your mind further back, you may also remember the comparatively cavalier Hearts side that he shaped in his previous spell in charge of the club.

Remember the 5-1 against Hibs at Tynecastle? The 4-4 draw with their rivals too? Remember the 7-1 hounding of Dunfermline? Levein’s time in charge of his country seems to have erased these events from the mind.

The goalless draw against Aberdeen in his first game back in charge hardly set the heather alight, but that was more down to the brilliance of Joe Lewis than any defensive mindset from Hearts, and this win over Hamilton hinted that more entertaining times are around the corner for the Jambos faithful under Levein’s charge.

Was it free-flowing? Not particularly. But it was direct and effective. And in something of a mirror of Levein himself as a player, you can see there will be no soft-centre to Hearts while he is stalking the dugout.

“You have to stand up and be counted, and I thought they all did that,” said Levein. “It was a scrap at times, but it does our confidence good to know that if we have to dig deep, if we have to fight, we can do that.”

Hearts didn’t waste any time in opening the scoring, and following his man-of-the-match performance on his debut against Aberdeen, Ross Callachan continued his dream start with his boyhood heroes by grabbing the goal.

Jamie Walker was the chief architect, nutmegging Ali Crawford in midfield before feeding the ball to the advancing Michael Smith on the right, who fired low across goal for Callachan to bundle home.

Accies had the chance to hit back when Crawford played Rakish Bingham through, but the forward fell over his feet and the ball ricocheted to safety.

Hearts punished them soon after, when referee Bobby Madden judged Ioannis Skondras to have bundled over Esmael Goncalves inside the area, allowing birthday boy Kyle Lafferty the chance to celebrate the landmark in style by slamming the ball home low to Gary Woods’ left.

Hamilton suddenly woke up, with Greg Docherty winning the ball from Arnaud Djoum in midfield before firing just wide, and you sensed there might just be a goal coming.

It duly arrived just after the half-hour as David Templeton nicked in ahead of the leaden-footed Rafal Grzelak to chest the ball away from the defender and hit the byline, firing a beauty of a low cross to the back post where Bingham was left to tap home and drag Accies back into it.

They almost grabbed an equaliser after the break when John Souttar cemented substitute Steven Boyd on the edge of the area, but Jon McLaughlin did brilliantly to reach up and claw out Crawford’s curling effort from the free-kick.

Walker was Hearts’ best player on the day, and maybe the best on the pitch. But he let himself down with his reaction to challenges, going down theatrically in the first half with nary a soul nearby, and then grossly overplaying the contact made, if any was made at all, as MacKinnon attempted to block his clearance in the second.

A word from referee Madden was all that his antics attracted, but perhaps they should also attract a talking-to from his manager in private, who praised his fine play in public.

The game itself was now a scrappy battle with Hamilton dominating, although Lafferty came close to sealing the points when he controlled a Don Cowie pass on his chest and fired just wide.

Accies kept huffing and puffing, but the visiting backline, superbly marshalled by Christophe Berra, never looked likely to ship a second, adding to manager Martin Canning’s frustration.

“I was so angry after the game," Canning said. "You can’t give anyone in this league a two-goal start. From there we were the better team by a distance, and it’s so frustrating.

“It was a good performance, but ultimately you have to win the game when you are playing well. Craig Levein will be delighted with the three points and that’s what matters.

“I’m bitterly disappointed that we’ve given a team that I believe we are better than a two-goal start, and then we had a big mountain to climb to get back into the game.”

For Hearts, being solid at the back with a threat going forward? After the last eight months, the Jambos support will take that all-day long.

HAMILTON: Woods; Sarris, Tomas, McMann; Skondras, Crawford, MacKinnon, Docherty, Imrie (Redmond, 74’); Templeton (Boyd, 53’); Bingham (Longridge, 84’).

Scorers: Bingham (32’)

Booked: Crawford (69’), Tomas (80’)

HEARTS: McLaughlin; Souttar, Berra, Grzelak; Smith, Djoum (Buaben, 45’) Callachan, Smith-Brown; Walker (Milinkovic, 90’); Goncalves (Cowie, 72’), Lafferty.

Scorers: Callachan (3’), Lafferty (pen. 21’)

Booked: Souttar (58’)

Attendance: 3351

Referee: Bobby Madden