GIVEN the season is moving into its final stages, it might seem strange to hear a coach describing the necessity for and merits of recent team building sessions. But this isn't an April Fool.

It is just the latest turn of events at Tynecastle.

Today, Hearts will make the short trip across Edinburgh to face Hibernian at Easter Road. Hibs, buoyed by their recent CIS Cup triumph, are a squad bound tight by friendship, belief, common purpose - and now - success.

But after Hearts' last match ended in a 4-0 hammering at home to Dundee United, Stephen Frail offered a blunt assessment of a team currently lacking many of those qualities.

Eight months into the season that might be a belated admission, but the club's assistant coach has only recently stepped centre stage following the end of Valdas Ivanauskas' reign as head coach and the latest round of managerial musical chairs which ended up with Anatoly Korobochka taking up an interim role in charge.

Korobochka only has limited English. Frail does not. He may now claim too much was made of his comments after the team's dismal performance against United, but there was little scope to misinterpret them - the Scots, the Lithuanians and the other foreigners in the squad had separated into their own groups and were not integrating in a manner which fostered team spirit or performances on the pitch.

Ahead of an Edinburgh derby which offers the potential for not only local bragging rights but also crucial points towards European qualification, Frail and those Hearts players not away on international duty spent a week at a training camp just outside Hamburg.

Friendly matches against Eintracht Braunschweig and FBK Kaunas featured, but just as significant was the emphasis put on bringing the players together as one group and not three, whether that be on the practice pitch, in their hotel, or during sing-a-longs on the back of the team bus.

"My comments after the United game weren't about division in the squad - there is no-one at each other's throats. It's just we have a group of quiet guys who are quite comfortable in their own surroundings. We just want to try and break that up a little bit and make sure they integrate more as a squad," explained Frail.

"We needed to make them think don't just stand or sit beside your mates' - speak to other people. That is the message we've been trying to get across because, on the pitch, you want players dying for each other."

Such concerns were never an issue when Frail used to play for the club. The likes of Craig Levein, Dave MacPherson, John Robertson, John Colquhoun and Gary Mackay were a tight group of team-mates who were also friends. It may be a sad indictment of the current squad that such cohesion is now apparently missing, but Frail refuses to attribute such deficiencies to the ongoing turmoil which has surrounded the club.

Second in the league last year and Scottish Cup winners, the current campaign has come down to a scrap for a Uefa Cup spot. Aberdeen are in pole position, and a victory for Hibs today would propel them firmly into the equation, particularly as they have a game in hand over the other two.

Frail accepts this season has been disappointing. "I know people want us to say that it is because of team selection and the different things that happen here week-in and week-out, but everything that has happened this year happened last year as well and last year was fantastic. We want that back and if everyone sticks together we can try and achieve that for next year."

Certainly Vladimir Romanov's controversial stewardship has ensured Hearts have operated in a nearly constant state of flux, but the significant difference between this year and last was the unifying presence of such Scottish stalwarts as Steven Pressley and Paul Hartley.

Experienced Scottish players are now few and far between at Tynecastle, and one of that dwindling band - Neil McCann - is desperate to be involved at Easter Road today.

However, the derby may come a day or two early for the 32-year-old following his return from a thigh injury which has kept him out of action since mid-February.

While it is almost five years since Hearts last recorded a victory at Easter Road, McCann can at least call on memories of his first spell at Hearts when he was on the winning side in Edinburgh derbies far more often than the losing one.

"I scored a couple of winners in those games and the one I remember in particular was after I'd been taking a bit of stick at Easter Road. I scored and gave it the hand-to-ear celebration which didn't go down well in the Leith end of Edinburgh," he joked.

He feels he will have a role today regardless of whether he is deemed fit to play, just as he has done during the long, frustrating weeks of his injury lay-off. "Not being on the park, you still try and do what you can for the team and it is important to keep the place buzzing," he explained.

"Obviously that responsibility comes with being a senior player, but you shouldn't need any encouragement for a game like this. If the other players don't know by now what an Edinburgh derby means to this club then there is something wrong.

"Strange things happen in football. Hibs have won the cup and will be on a high and we are coming off a bit of a doing from United. But maybe that was the kick up the arse we needed," he added.

Frail will be hoping that is how it pans out this afternoon. And that a united front delivers both the points and plaudits for Hearts.