Hearts plan pre-season trip to Ireland

Ian Cathro plans to take Hearts to Ireland for pre-season

Arrangements are being finalised at the moment for a week-long stay which is likely to include a friendly against Linfield on Saturday, July 8.

The Tynecastle club will spend around four days in the Republic of Ireland from Monday, July 3, and hope to arrange a friendly that midweek in the Dublin area. They will then journey into Northern Ireland for the weekend and hope to face Linfield.

Previous pre-season trips to both Northern Ireland and the Republic have proven useful exercises for Hearts under former managers Robbie Neilson, Csaba Laszlo and George Burley.

Head coach Ian Cathro now hopes to take his squad across the Irish Sea to prepare for the start of season 2017/18.

Players will report to Riccarton for the start of pre-season training in mid-June before heading to their training camp for the first week of July. Hearts' competitive matches start in the Betfred League Cup in mid-July, the draw for which takes place on Friday, June 2.

The initial Betfred Cup group stage sees the 40 participating clubs placed into eight groups of five and play four games across five match dates – July 15, 19, 22, 26 and 29 (subject to broadcast selections).