One of the aspects of being a captain is the media duties following a particularly poor result and performance.
It was a task Lawrence Shankland performed often last season as Heart of Midlothian finished in the bottom six. In his stead, due to injury, it is Craig Halkett who has been wearing the armband, and it was the centre-back who sought to find an answer to the difficulties the side faced as they went down 1-0 at Kilmarnock on Saturday night.
It was a result that meant Hearts ended the weekend with a two-point lead over Celtic at the top of the Scottish Premiership, with Rangers a point further back.
It was also a result that prompted an honest response from Halkett.
"Disappointment. It's just frustrating coming off the back of having a free week last week. I thought we had a really good week of training. The boys were ready, but we just never performed well enough," he said.
"I don't think we started the game anywhere near good enough and put ourselves on the back foot. I think just too many individual battles went wrong and performances weren't good enough. It's hugely frustrating.
"It was one of the days we weren't good enough. The players in there will hold their hands up. We knew it wasn't good enough.
"We just need to go back to training and do what we've done for the majority of this season. Any time we've had a setback, we'll bounce back straight away with a win. This week is no different. We know that the aim is to go and get three points next weekend and just go from there."
It was two different halves of football in terms of how the game played out. But both halves were below what was required. In the first half, Hearts were second best but created openings. Second half, they had 68 per cent possession but created little.
Halkett revealed Derek McInnes had "a bit of a go" during the interval, but there was also a reminder after the game about the team's position in the league and what they can still achieve.
"The manager had a good talk after it. He had a bit of a go at us at half-time, rightly so, because we didn't start the game well," Halkett said.
"I think the second half performance was a wee bit better, but in the end it wasn't enough to get anything from the game. The manager spoke for most of the time.
"The players will go away disappointed and come back in. The players will probably chat the first couple of days of the week. It's one of those games where you get the disappointment out of the way early because you've got another massive game on the weekend.
"It was something that the manager reminded us of down there. We're still in a brilliant position. I think anybody else in the league would bite their hand off to be in the position we're in.
"As disappointing as Saturday was, we're all going to be frustrated with it, but we've got to remember where we are and where we've been.
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"We've been in a great position for quite a number of months now. It's important that we don't get too disappointed with what's happened. Like I said, we've lost a big game that we thought we could go and get three points from, but we didn't. We've got to take it on the chin and move on quickly."
There will no doubt be talk and noise of pressure and bottle.
Hearts played between Celtic and Rangers. Often, the Jam Tarts have been first to play, as will be the case on Saturday when they play Dundee prior to Rangers hosting Aberdeen that evening and then Celtic going to Tannadice to take on Dundee United after.
"It depends how you look at it. From a player's point of view, whether we play first or last, it doesn't make much of a difference. We played tonight, other teams played again this afternoon. We've just got to focus on ourselves and win our games," Halktt said.
"Unfortunately, we didn't do that today, but it's something we've done all season. We'll bounce back straight away for any setbacks we've had.
"It's the exact same from when we lost at Ibrox. Everyone looked at it and said it was a massive game. When we get beat, there's loads of noise from outside. It's just up to us as players, coaches and everyone in the building not to listen. It's just in one ear, out the other.
"We just focus on ourselves. The games are getting fewer and fewer every week but we know what we need to do. The first thing is to go and bounce back well and win at the weekend."
He added: "I think for us, I've said it before this season, for the majority, if not 99 per cent of the boys in our changing room, we have not been in this position before. I see it personally, myself, as a positive. I don't have any past experiences of being in this position and knowing what the pressure feels like.
"For myself personally, I don't take outside noise to heart. I don't listen to it. I don't think we need to do that because they said this. It's just about us doing our job, coming in Monday to Friday, train as hard as we can and try to win a game at the weekend."
Hearts are set to be buoyed by the return of two of the team's most influential players in Cammy Devlin and Lawrence Shankland. The duo will return to full training this week ahead of the Dundee game.
Hakett said: "It'll be huge. We had Oisin [McEntee] back, which was a great positive. We're going to have a few more back in the next few games. Shanks and Cammy, everyone knows how important they are to our team and how good a season we were having before they got injured. So to get the both of them back this week in full training will be huge. It'll just give everyone a massive lift.
"We'll get over the disappointment quickly. We'll come back in and get the boys back in training. The mood will be lifted really quickly. The two boys will bring real positivity and we'll all be fully focused on the Dundee game next week.
"I can't remember what the point situation was when that week the two of them got injured. We went on a run of six or seven games without the two of them. Two massive players for our team. I know there's loads of teams in the league that have had injuries, but they're two really influential players on our team.
"We've picked up a lot of positive results. It gives everyone in the squad huge encouragement. We know we've got a big squad down there and people need to step up when people get injured and I think they have done. Everyone will get a massive lift for the two of them coming back into the squad."
