Steven Naismith insists Hearts go into Saturday’s crunch game against St Mirren with increased confidence despite suffering defeat by Celtic last week.

The Hoops clinched the cinch Premiership title with a 2-0 win at Tynecastle, where goals from Kyogo Furuhashi and Oh Hyeon-gyu came after the home side lost Alex Cochrane to a contentious VAR-assisted red card on the stroke of half-time.

The Gorgie side had caused Celtic problems until it was adjudged that the Jambos defender had denied Parkhead attacker Daizen Maeda an obvious goalscoring opportunity.

Hearts interim boss Naismith had enjoyed a 6-1 win over Ross County in his first home match in charge but was far from disheartened by the Celtic setback.

“If anything else it gives us more confidence,” said Naismith, who revealed that appealing against Cochrane’s red card was discussed but it was decided “we don’t want to risk losing a player for longer”.

He added: “We have challenged the team at the top of the league who have been away out in front consistently with their performances and limited them to very little opportunities and more looking to the first half, we caused them loads of problems and not many teams have done that this season.

“I said after the game that there were lots of positives and that’s the way we looked at it coming away from the game.

“Not just looking at the game but the data that comes with it, it’s not perception, it’s fact.

“In the first half we were the dominant team, we created the better chances, where we played the game was in the better areas for us in general.

“We also analysed the goals and how they came and what we can do better but overall we are still definitely progressing as I would like and now we have to get results.”

With four fixtures remaining, Hearts are in fourth place in the table, five points behind Aberdeen, one ahead of Hibernian and two ahead of Stephen Robinson’s St Mirren, who have lost three in a row since beating the Jambos 2-0 at Tynecastle last month.

Naismith, whose side host the Dons the week after the St Mirren game, said: “The next couple of games coming up for us are going to be important.

“But we would rather be in this position, trying to go for European football than be in mid-table and not to be involved.

“St Mirren have consistently been in most games this season and they have done really well to get into the top six.

“I know as a club it is something they have been pushing for in the last few seasons and have narrowly missed out. This time they have made it which is an achievement in itself.

“The manager has come in and done a fantastic job and they have a way of playing we need to guard against.

“And as much as the results haven’t been there for them in the last couple of games, they definitely have a threat going forward.”

Northamptonshire’s Josh Cobb has declared himself “shocked and disappointed” by the club’s decision to oust him as T20 captain in favour of David Willey.

Cobb, 32, has held the role since 2019 and was set to lead the team in this season’s Vitality Blast until Wednesday’s announcement that England all-rounder Willey had taken the reins. The Steelbacks begin their campaign at home to Worcestershire Rapids on May 24.

Willey, who is back for a second stint at the county after returning from Yorkshire, has only just returned from the Indian Premier League.

And while Cobb wished him well, he made his unhappiness clear in a statement posted to Twitter.

“Having been blindsided by the news, I am shocked and disappointed to be relieved of my captaincy duties so close to the Blast starting,” he wrote.

“Spending the winter planning and preparing the squad, I felt we were in a good position to challenge again this year and we absolutely are!

“It has been an honour and a privilege to lead Northants for the last 4/5 years and I’ve enjoyed it all.

“I would also like to wish David Willey all the best for his tenure as captain. For now I’ll be trying to win as many games for Northants and my team-mates as I can.”

Cobb also thanked former coach David Ripley, while the incumbent John Sadler went pointedly unmentioned.

Everton manager Sean Dyche insists it would be wrong to think “everything is solved” following their resounding win over Brighton.

A 5-1 victory, only the club’s second away win in the Premier League this season, lifted the relegation-threatened Toffees out of the bottom three and two points clear of the drop zone.

However, despite the morale-boosting result prompting many pundits to now favour Everton escaping a first top-flight relegation since 1951, Dyche has cautioned against complacency – especially with treble-chasing Manchester City next up at Goodison Park.

“When I walked in here the thing that hit me instantly was a big result, big everything; tough result, low everything. That needed to change in-house,” he told the club’s website.

“The in-house feel here, the environment we work in, and the flow had to get more level and more consistent in our daily work and thinking.

“We’ve spoken to the players and staff about it. It’s important to handle good times in terms of not thinking everything is solved and right and proper.

“When I talk about seeing through the noise, that maybe implies when things aren’t going right but it very much applies to when things are going right as well.”

Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell would be “amazed” if any Scottish club could afford to buy player-of-the-year contender Kevin van Veen.

The 31-year-old is open to a summer move after hitting 25 goals so far this season and being nominated for top player in the PFA Scotland awards.

But Kettlewell is comfortable the Dutchman is happy at Fir Park unless both he and the club receive an offer they cannot refuse.

“I would be amazed if a club in Scotland could come up with the money we would be thinking about for Kevin van Veen,” said the Motherwell manager, whose team face St Johnstone on Saturday.

“This is where he is so categorically, I am so categoric; as it stands, unless someone was able to put life-changing money in front of Motherwell – and it would have to be both parties – then he will remain a Motherwell player.”

Van Veen has a year left on his contract and spoke about the potential for a summer move after his award nomination was announced on Wednesday – but there were no surprises for Kettlewell in what his player said.

“I am comfortable that I have had so many conversations with Kevin on a personal level, manager to striker,” Kettlewell said.

“And the one thing we both agree on is that he is extremely happy here, that the football club is really happy with him, the supporters love him and I love working with him on a daily basis.

“But there is always a cross point where, if someone puts a ridiculous offer in front of you, sometimes the football club have to profit on it.”

Motherwell made a deficit of about £1million last season and this season’s loss is expected to be even higher.

Kettlewell said: “It would be safe to say it’s been a really challenging year for the club financially. We don’t want to get rid of the player but sometimes an offer comes along that you can’t say no to. I think that’s all that Kevin was saying as well.”

There were strong rumours of a potential move to China earlier this year but no switch materialised before the country’s transfer window closed in early April.

When asked if there had been concrete interest in the Dutchman, Kettlewell said: “There’s not been anything this last spell.

“I have heard a lot of speculation. Every part of a situation that involves Kevin van Veen or any player, they are 100 per cent aware of any situation where there is contact directly to the club or myself.

“When I was a player, if that wasn’t made known to you by the powers that be at the club then I think you create a real problem for yourself.

“Anybody that contacts me or the club, the conversation is had with the player. It’s never to disrupt them, it’s always the opposite.

“It could be something that’s serious, it could be something that’s pure speculation. It could be something that’s in the press that has not happened that disrupts a player, which by the way is happening continuously.

“If there’s something official the player will hear about it directly from myself.”

Highly-regarded Kilmarnock teenager David Watson has committed his future to his boyhood club by signing a two-year contract extension until June 2025.

The 18-year-old midfielder has been part of Killie’s academy for more than a decade and has broken into the first team this term.

After enjoying two League Cup outings at the start of the campaign, Watson made his Premiership debut in March and has gone on to start each of the last six matches in Derek McInnes’ engine room.

“Reaching the first team had been the goal since I joined the club as a seven-year-old, but I feel like my journey here is only just getting started,” he told the Killie website after signing his new deal.

“There are so many factors that make Kilmarnock the right place for the next stage of my career.

“The manager has given me so much belief about what we can achieve over the next two years and I’m excited about the future that lies ahead.”

Joel Embiid may have finally been named as NBA's MVP but winning the championship with the Philadelphia 76ers would push his legacy to "new heights".

That was the message from Embiid's former team-mate Perry Ellis, who played with the 76ers star during his one-year stint of college basketball at the Kansas Jayhawks.

Embiid finished runner-up to Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic in the previous two seasons but claimed the MVP award this time around after leading the league with a 33.1 points-per-game average.

The six-time NBA All-Star now has his sights on a first championship of his career, attempting to end the 76ers' long-awaited road to glory since last triumphing way back in 1983.

Philadelphia lead the Boston Celtics 3-2 in their second-round playoff series and Ellis believes success for the 76ers would represent a landmark moment in Embiid's already illustrious career.

"It'll be huge for them for, legacy wise, and just for him, mentally, mindset wise, to say you got past that stage," Ellis told Stats Perform.

"We're moving forward, we're pushing to new heights, and I think that would be big for his career. And overall, mentally, I think that'll take him to the next step.

"He's an MVP now but it's even more, just taking it to another step. So I think that's what it could do."

Jokic and Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo were the other two frontrunners for the MVP award this year, although Embiid's late-season exploits propelled him to the individual accolade.

Doc Rivers declared the MVP race "over" after Embiid scored 52 points against the Celtics in the last week of the regular season, with Ellis revelling in his former teammate's exploits.

"Before he was so close, over the last couple of years," Ellis added. "And this year, he finally got it. I was just so excited for him, he was a teammate of mine for a year.

"Just from that little stint, I could see how much he was growing as a player and he only started playing basketball at maybe 15 years old or so.

"Everybody could see how good he can be. So I had no doubt that someday he could be that type of player."

Embiid hit 30 points for a third straight game in the last outing against the Celtics, offering the 76ers the chance to secure their first NBA Finals appearance since 2001 with victory in the next meeting on Thursday.

Ronnie O’Sullivan is planning to skip UK tournaments to concentrate on playing in Asia.

The seven-time world champion has swung between preferring to play at home and abroad and, in an interview on talkSPORT to promote his new autobiography, Unbreakable, O’Sullivan said he is now looking to travel more.

“I’ve gone the other way now, I’m going to travel and play all the overseas tournaments and miss all the UK tournaments,” he said.

“I can’t do it all. Before I used to say, ‘I won’t travel, I’ll stay in the UK’, which was sweet, but now I think at this stage of my career, obviously Asia’s a big place to play, bigger tournaments, so I’ll do them and miss the UK ones.

“If I don’t do well in the Asian ones than I’ll get home early and then I don’t mind hopping on a plane and going to Scotland or Belfast but, if I do well, I want to have a week at home, chill out with the dogs and then get back on a plane and go back to India or wherever.”

O’Sullivan fell short in his bid to win an eighth world title, losing in the quarter-finals to eventual champion Luca Brecel last month.

He praised the Belgian, saying: “I thought Luca was unbelievable. You talk about talent – (in football) you look at someone who does things with the ball and you think, ‘How does he do that?’ And Luca is that player.

“I know how he does it but trying to do it is another thing. I didn’t think he’d beat (Mark) Selby in the final because I thought over two days Selby would get into him but he just kept playing his game.

“It was phenomenal. He made that tournament, and the young Chinese guy (Si Jiahui) in the semi-final. Just pot, pot, pot, scoring, clearing up in one visit, and that’s what everybody wants to see.”

Andy Murray will make a decision over the next few days about whether to play in the French Open.

The Scot was knocked out of the Italian Open in the first round by Fabio Fognini on Wednesday evening after a three-set battle lasting nearly three hours.

Murray has failed to win a match at any of the three clay-court Masters 1000 events over the last month but won his first title since 2019 at the second-tier tournament in Aix-en-Provence on Sunday.

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Murray, who turns 36 this week, has only played at Roland Garros once since 2017 and must now decide whether to compete on the Parisian clay potentially for the last time or begin his preparations early for the grass-court season.

He told The Guardian: “I’d still like to play but we did agree that we’d talk and make a decision as a team after Rome.

“That is what I wanted, to see how my game felt, how I was playing and physically how I was doing in some of the longer matches before making a definitive call on it. We’ll have those discussions in the next few days.”

Murray and Fognini have been foes dating back to their junior days and it was the Italian who came out on top 6-4 4-6 6-4 after a tight battle.

“It was a pretty patchy match,” said Murray. “There was some good stuff in there but also some pretty average stuff. He played very well in the third set. My level was OK in the third, but he played really well in the third.”

The result was a setback to Murray’s hopes of being seeded at Wimbledon, while he got into a row with umpire Mohamed Lahyani over a line call late in the first set.

Responding to an Instagram post about the incident, Murray hit out at the Rome fans, saying: “Stadium full of Italians booing and whistling, thinking I’m trying to cheat Fabio out of point all because Mo couldn’t read a mark properly. Cheers mate.”

Fabian Edwards is treating Gegard Mousasi as a stepping stone to a shot at the Bellator middleweight title rather than revelling in sharing the octagon with the Dutch great.

The Birmingham fighter has an opportunity to step out of the shadow of his older brother Leon, the UFC welterweight champion, when he takes on Mousasi at Bellator 296 in Paris on Friday night in a title eliminator.

Victory at the Accor Arena should tee up a showdown later this year against Johnny Eblen, who dethroned Mousasi as the promotion’s 185lb champion with a shutout decision win in Connecticut 11 months ago.

Mousasi is a former two-time Bellator middleweight champion and a veteran of 59 mixed martial arts fights – 46 more than Edwards, who is nevertheless focused on the bigger picture.

“There’s not really any added motivation because it’s him, it’s just added motivation because of the journey that I’m on and after this I get my shot at the title,” Edwards told the PA news agency.

“There’s always respect for the opponent. He’s put the work in and been around for a long time so there’s definitely respect there.

“But when you start putting a guy on a pedestal, you might go in there and treat him like he’s a God. He’s just a human being. He’s just another man at the end of the day.

“Leon’s done his part, I’m two fights away from doing my part. I’m just locked into that. We’ve always been pushing each other, I’ve pushed him to be a champ, he’s going to help me be a champ.”

While Mousasi has fought some of the all-time best MMA combatants, Edwards claimed an impressive scalp 12 months ago when he knocked out ex-UFC light-heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida.

Not many are tipping Edwards (11-2 in MMA) but that was the case when his brother beat long-reigning champion Kamaru Usman twice, and the younger Edwards has no problem with being doubted.

“The more of an underdog I am, the more I shine through,” he said. “I think that way but that’s fine by me because I don’t believe I’m the underdog and that’s all that matters.

“(A win would be) a huge statement in everyone else’s eyes but not mine.

“I’ve just got to be the smarter fighter and that’s it. I’m not going out there thinking it has to be here, it has to be there. I’m going out there ready to mix it up.

“I’ve prepped really well. I know everyone says that because no-one’s going to turn around and say ‘it was a s*** camp’ but honestly I’ve prepped well and I’m in the best shape.”

:: Watch Bellator 296: Mousasi vs. Edwards live on BBC iPlayer on Friday, May 12, from the Accor Arena, Paris from 5pm BST

Madrid Open organisers have apologised for not allowing the women’s doubles finalists to speak on court following Sunday’s match.

The PA news agency understands the WTA is investigating the various issues raised regarding the treatment of its players at the Caja Magica last week, and the tournament’s chief executive Gerard Tsobanian has now issued a public apology.

The convention is for the runners-up and winners to address the crowd following finals, and champions Victoria Azarenka and Beatriz Haddad Maia and beaten finalists Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula were shocked to be denied the opportunity.

Tsobanian wrote on Twitter: “We sincerely apologise to all the players and fans who expect more of the Mutua Madrid Open tournament.

“Not giving our women’s doubles finalists the chance to address their fans at the end of the match was unacceptable and we have apologised directly to Victoria, Beatriz, Coco and Jessica.

“We are working internally and with the WTA to review our protocols and are committed to improving our process moving forward. We made a mistake and this will not ever happen again.”

There was also criticism of the revealing outfits worn by model ball girls on the main court as well as the way the tournament celebrated the birthday of male champion Carlos Alcaraz compared to women’s singles winner Aryna Sabalenka.

They share a birthday on May 5 but, while Alcaraz was presented with a huge cake on court after his semi-final, Sabalenka, who was not playing that day, was given a much more modest confection backstage.

It is not the first time the Madrid Open, which is now owned by leading agency IMG, has been accused of favouring men over women, and Azarenka tweeted in response to pictures of two cakes: “Couldn’t be more accurate on the treatment.”

In their speeches after the women’s final, Sabalenka made a joke about the cakes while runner-up Iga Swiatek made clear her unhappiness with being made to play after midnight.

That appeared to be the final straw for tournament director Feliciano Lopez, who had hit back at criticism over the cakes on Twitter.

The WTA has not made any public comment on the matter but it is understood it does not agree with the decisions that were made and is looking into events.

Speaking ahead of the Italian Open in Rome this week, Pegula told reporters: “I’ve never heard of that (not being allowed to speak) in my life.

“I don’t know what century everyone was living in when they made that decision or how they actually had a conversation and decided, like, ‘Wow, this is a great decision we’re going to do and there’s going to be no backlash against this’.”

Australia coach Eddie Jones said he is ready to launch a “smash and grab” campaign to win the Rugby World Cup and Bledisloe Cup after confirming his coaching team.

Jones, who took over the Wallabies in January after being sacked by England the previous month, has named Brad Davis as his attack coach with former Australian internationals Dan Palmer and Berrick Barnes also joining the staff.

“We believe we have a quality coaching staff to plan and prepare the team for a smash and grab campaign, winning the Bledisloe Cup and finishing by winning the Rugby World Cup,” Jones said, who took England to the world cup final in 2019.

“It is experience, diverse and adaptable.”

Former rugby league player Davis coached at London Irish this season having previously worked with Bath, Wasps and Ospreys.

Ex-Wallaby prop Palmer, an assistant coach at ACT Brumbies, will work as lineout coach alongside Neal Hatley, who was named forwards co-ordinator earlier this year.

Former England scrum coach Hatley will join up with the Wallabies after finishing the season with Premiership side Bath.

Barnes, who won 51 caps for Australia as an outside-half, will work as a part-time kicking consultant with former Castres boss Pierre-Henry Broncan appointed as a maul consultant and Jon Clarke leading the strength and conditioning team – a role he filled with England.

Australia kick off their Rugby Championship campaign against South Africa in Pretoria on July 8.