Hearts midfielder Laryea Kingston believes a new-found team spirit at Tynecastle can act as a catalyst for a sustained league challenge this season.

The 26-year-old Ghana international has admitted morale at the multi-national Edinburgh club was poor at the start of the new campaign.

A 1-0 home defeat to city rivals Hibernian in their opening fixture set the tone, before assistant coach Stevie Frail openly criticised the lack of unity in the squad after a 5-0 hammering at Celtic at the end of August.

But Kingston believes the team have rallied round since then and showed their increased togetherness in the 4-2 victory over Rangers earlier this month before undoing their good work in defeat at Inverness.

But the side again rallied round to reach the last eight of the CIS Insurance Cup after an extra-time win over Dunfermline on Tuesday night and Kingston feels Hearts are on the right track both on and off the park.

Speaking at the launch of the club's annual Hall of Fame event, he said: "It was quite disappointing we lost against Inverness and I hope Tuesday has brought back our confidence to get us going.

"But the team spirit has improved a lot and that is very important to us.

"From the beginning the spirit was low, but now we are bringing the spirit up.

"The most important thing is the players have to be happy with each other all the time.

"Sometimes we have to go out and eat together - that brings team spirit. We need to share jokes in the dressing room, on the pitch and on the training ground. I think now it happens a lot.

"When I was at Lokomotiv Moscow, we would normally be together after every game. We would have a players' lunch after every game, you would sit down with your family and drink and eat something together."

Kingston's influence from the middle of the park will be crucial if Hearts are to bridge an already large 10-point gap to league leaders Rangers.

But he is convinced time is on Hearts' side, ahead of Sunday's trip to St Mirren.

He added: "We still have lots of games until the end of the season and the squad we have now is quite a good squad.

"Everyone is working hard, it's quite unfortunate we didn't start well in the season.

"But we still have hope that we can catch up on those at the top. Everyone can see we started slowly."