I think there is a lot of justified positivity. Our players have been idle, at least from a footballing point of view, for months and our thin squad was ravaged by injury.
Yet, that was so very much more encouraging than our last visit to Tynecastle in this competition when all we had to do to progress was avoid losing by four or more goals and failed miserably to do that.
On this occasion we only lost very narrowly due to a highly dubious penalty and a match rusty striker's lack of finishing ability.
We are rightly treating these games as very largely 'pre season' but we have a realistic hope of qualifying for the knockout stages as one of the best runners up and some real confidence in our ability to compete with, far and away, the best resourced team in the division once we are back up to something approaching full strength.
A credit to all at the club for getting us so ready for the season ahead in the most challenging of circumstances.