Hibernian head coach Neil Lennon branded Hearts "irrelevant" following his side's Edinburgh derby victory and said Craig Levein's comments had come back to haunt him.

Lennon's counterpart Levein had claimed Hearts restored "natural order" when they beat Hibs for the first time in 10 games to knock them out of the Scottish Cup.

But on Friday Lennon watched his team extend their lead in the Premiership over their capital city rivals to 12 points thanks to goals from Scott Allan and Jamie Maclaren.

The Hibs coach lauded his side's "outstanding" display at Easter Road.

He said: "(Hearts) are irrelevant to us now.

"We are looking up the table rather than what's behind us.

"Look, I don't want to give soundbites and get into another verbal spat.

"You make these statements and they will always come back to haunt you at some stage. It's come back to haunt them after four or five weeks."

Lennon added: "We could have won the game by more.

"We have handled the psychology of a big game, again, very, very well and we have got the bragging rights back, for how long, who knows?

"But the gap is huge now between us and them, and the gap on the pitch is huge as well."

When asked if he regretted his post-match comments from January, Levein was unwilling to offer a direct response..

He said: "Listen, Hibs played exactly how I expected them to play.

"We just didn't do well enough in possession of the ball.

"Better than we have been doing recently, in the last third of the pitch when we had opportunities to play a composed pass, we ended up rushing things.

"At the other end we defended really well, John (Souttar) and Christophe (Berra) were excellent.

"We played man for man at times and they dealt with the threat, until those two throw-in situations, which is something that is really annoying."