Hearts loanee Lewis Neilson on playing alongside 'leader' Liam Henderson and why Falkirk spell is going well

Hearts loanee Lewis Neilson says he is loving life playing alongside “leader” Liam Henderson in the Bairns’ backline as the centre-back continues to learn his trade in the Scottish Premiership.

The defender, 22, joined John McGlynn’s side on loan for the season earlier than expected after Coll Donaldson suffered an injury set-back - and he has since played alongside team-mate Henderson at the heart of the defence. He’s only missed one top-flight outing, and that came about because he couldn’t face his parent Tynecastle side last month.

And playing week in week out is key for Neilson after he played a squad role for the Jam Tarts during the second-half of last season after being recalled from a loan spell at St Johnstone.

Neilson hails Hendo partnership

“I’ve loved it,” he said. “I came here to play games and I have played every minute of football that I could so far. It was frustrating last weekend not being able to play against Hearts. It was just one of those things. I am loving playing alongside Hendo. His story is brilliant. From where he has came from to where he is now is amazing. He is a pleasure to play beside. He strolls it. The Hibs game, he scored a brilliant goal and honestly it felt like I didn’t even need to be there because he covered everything. We are growing together as a partnership really well. I think that will continue as we get to know each other’s games inside out. I love being beside him, he is a leader and he talks you through the game.”

Neilson played the 90 minutes during Falkirk’s 1-1 draw with Rangers last Sunday and he believes that the Bairns’ performance up until the visitors’ opener should be the “blueprint” for how they go about things after the international break. McGlynn’s men sit tenth on six points from opening seven fixtures and travel to high-flying Motherwell next.

He said: “We’ve had a tough schedule over the past month. St Mirren, Hibs, Hearts then Rangers. It doesn’t get much harder than that. No matter what form the Old Firm teams are in - you know that it is going to be a tough game. They’ll have moments of quality. They scored a really good goal. Before that for 35/40 minutes, we were honestly brilliant. I think for us that has to the blueprint for the rest of the season. The only thing missing was a goal with the amount of pressure that we had. We should have capitalised on our dominance. We spoke at half time about making sure that we got something from the game, we didn’t want it to be a hard-luck story. We came out and continued with the momentum we had before the goal, we managed to get the goal back and we should have won it. The substitutes made a massive impact too. Henry (Cartwright) scored the goal but honestly each sub played a big part in the game. We flashed a few balls across and we had a couple of decent chances. We weren’t overjoyed with a point because we were capable of winning the game. No-one is going to come here to Falkirk and get an easy three points.”