Paul Heckingbottom believes it is vital that Hibernian learn from their defeat against Motherwell if they are to achieve consistency throughout the season.

Hibs lost 3-0 at Fir Park before the international break and the manager insists his players must understand the reasons for the result and work to ensure past mistakes are not repeated.

Heckingbottom also warned his charges that changes to the starting line-up are a possible way of putting things right.

Speaking ahead of Saturday's trip to Kilmarnock, he said: "It's important to understand why we got beaten.

"So with the Motherwell one, it's no good just passing the ball and looking pretty with the ball but in real key moments not standing up, and being poor.

"The goals we conceded were really poor on our part. You can't ignore that and that is the bit we'll be working on to put right over the coming weeks.

"Because unless we put that right, we will be a team that's playing well one week and poor the next. Or results will be like that, regardless of performance.

"So that's the bit we'll be working to put right. We do it on the training pitch or we do it by changing the players in the starting XI."

With the Motherwell defeat in mind, Heckingbottom said he would have liked another game soon afterwards but acknowledged the prolonged break has been beneficial for some of his players.

He added: "From a personal point of view, I'd rather have had a game as quickly as possible and got playing.

"But for getting people back – Ryan Porteous has had another 90 minutes away with the (Scotland) Under-21s so things like that have helped.

"But we're here to play football so we're just ready for the game now.

"Everyone's back in today. That's the only difficult thing about international breaks.

"If people are away, you're waiting for them to come back in, so they're not involved in anything tactical before the game."

Heckingbottom said he will check on Vykintas Slivka after the Lithuania midfielder returned from international duty with swelling on his ankle.