Hearts star now 'good to go' in title quest after 'super-upsetting' moment

The Australian midfielder was riding the crest of a wave before his ankle crumpled under the weight of a challenge from St Mirren’s Killian Phillips in the closing moments of a rousing 2-0 win for the 10-man Jambos on January 14.

More than two months on, Devlin is relieved that he is preparing to return at a time when Hearts remain top of the table with just eight games left.

“I feel ready, I feel good,” he said ahead of Saturday’s Tynecastle clash with Dundee. “I feel confident in my body, that it’s all good to go. It’s been a tough couple of months, I haven’t enjoyed it at all. So to be on the other side of it now, back with my mates on the grass, it’s really exciting.”

Touted as a player of the year contender while driving Hearts in their bid to make history, and also aiming to secure his place in Australia’s World Cup squad, Devlin admitted his injury could not have been more untimely.

“It was just horrific,” he said. “That was one of the more special victories I’d been a part of until that happened because you had that feeling inside you, like ‘what a team’. Injuries never come at a good time, but with the way things were going, I had played every game up until then.

“There was so much at stake for us at that moment, with the position we’d put ourselves in. Obviously, you don’t really know how it’s going to look, but we were in such a good position then and we still are now.

“It’s also a World Cup year, so these are two things that you think about every single day.

“My mum and dad were in the stand that night. It was the last game they were going to watch before they went back home, so that was an extra thing that was just super-upsetting, leaving their last game in Edinburgh on crutches. It was just horrible, the whole thing.”

Devlin could be in his final months as a Hearts player as he is out of contract this summer, but the 27-year-old stressed that his sole focus for now is on trying to deliver a first title in 65 years to a club he joined in 2021.

“There’s eight games left, which doesn’t seem like much, but then if you say there’s 24 points left, that is a lot of points left to play for,” he said. “There’s a lot still to happen, I think, which is exciting.

“In the years I’ve been here, you’d probably sit here at this stage and say Celtic have won the league. So to be in and amongst that with a few other teams is so exciting, something we’re all proud of.

“We just want to have no regrets, give everything we’ve possibly got, because you never know when this opportunity is going to come back around. We just need to keep going and really try and create something special, which we’re close to, but also so far away from.”