The tightness of the Tynecastle stands to the pitch is part of what convinced Peter Haring to sign for Hearts, but fears more incidents like those seen on Wednesday night could mean measures are taken to keep fans at arms length.

Hibs manager Neil Lennon was hit by a coin, while Haring's teammate, goalkeeper Bobby Zlamal, was punched by an away fan leaning over the advertising hoardings.

The usually raucous derby atmosphere in the Gorgie ground was at times, on the wrong side of intimidating.

Haring loves the place when it's rocking, but says there's a line that can't be crossed when big games start heating up.

"No-one wants to lose the atmosphere," said the latest Hearts player to wear the captain's armband.

"Everyone who comes here to Tynecastle for the first time, who are coming from Austria, come here and they love it.

"It's something really special that you're close to the pitch. That's how it should be and why we have that atmosphere in our stadium.

"Everyone loves it. The players on the pitch, the supporters in the stands, everyone.

"But if things like that happen, what happened to Jimmy Dunne against Aberdeen, what happened to Bobby, they'll put supporters behind anything."

Haring was keen to stress that the majority of fans were able to behave. "The atmosphere was great and our fans are great but even if there's just one or two people who behave wrong, that's enough," he warned.

"I think it's not the main crowd who are behaving wrong. Most of the time it's just a handful of people, especially here in the UK. The SPFL - I don't know does it - but they are doing a good job sorting people out."

He also insisted that it's not just a problem for Scottish football.

Haring continued: "Things like this happen again and again and again, not only in Scotland.

"The same thing happened in Austria like three or four months ago. There was a linesman that was hit by a coin.

"In happened at Sturm Graz. They played for Europe. I think the fan got banned from the stadium but what else happened I don't know."

"What can you do against people throwing a coin? You can't say 'now you're not allowed to throw coins in the stadium.' so what can you do?"

The midfielder also revealed that he's feeling good despite recent nerve and hernia problems.

Craig Levein revealed Haring would need an operation to sort the latter in January, but the man himself isn't 100% or whether that will be necessary.

"I don't know if I am," he replied when asked when he was going under the knife.

"Things are going well now, I feel good and it's getting better. We'll see how it feels after the next games and the international break.

It wasn't good on Sunday but got much better over the last couple of days so I feel ready to play. If I'm ready to play I won't need to do that."