DWIGHT GAYLE carried on where he left off last season by grabbing the goals that put Newcastle United on course for victory in their opening pre-season friendly of the summer against Heart of Midlothian.

The leading scorer in the promotion winning team grabbed both first half goals, in the third and 24th minutes, either side of a Jamie Walker strike for Hearts, to secure a 2-1 victory at Tynecastle.

Rafael Benitez, desperately awaiting some positive transfer news from the boardroom, was on hand in the dug-out to watch Gayle remind him of his eye for a goal on a night when he also handed a first appearance to summer recruit Florian Lejeune.

Given the distinct lack of transfer activity on Tyneside, the only presence of a new signing in the starting line-up at Tynecastle was a familiar face. Christian Atsu, the £6.2m buy from Chelsea who spent last season on loan at Newcastle, was on the right.

Lejeune, the £8.7m purchase from Eibar and the only other new signing thus far, was largely untroubled during his first outing after the restart and had a header over the bar. Otherwise Benitez could only turn to the players who served him well last year.

Neither Matt Ritchie, given extra time to recover from surgery in April, nor DeAndre Yedlin, who was playing internationals during the summer, were in Edinburgh, while unwanted goalkeepers Karl Darlow and Tim Krul did not travel either.

Any frustrations on the transfer front didn’t appear to have filtered down to the playing staff. Rolando Aarons had already crashed an effort against the crossbar before Gayle grabbed the first goal of pre-season inside three minutes.

Siem de Jong, hungry to prove himself after spending last season on loan at PSV, played a defence-splitting pass beyond the Hearts centre-backs and Gayle was left with the task of slotting low and beyond goalkeeper Jack Hamilton.

Hearts soon had their moments. Winger Esmael Goncalves was inches wide of an equaliser when his strike from 30 yards had Rob Elliot at full stretch.

He actually got far closer with that than he did with an abysmally taken penalty kick which he blasted over when Walker was bundled over in the box by Massadio Haidara.

Walker took matters into his own hands seconds later, though. He levelled things up by blasting beyond Elliot after a neat exchange of passes with Hearts team-mate Cole Stockton in the visitors’ box.

Newcastle regained the lead soon after when Gayle headed in Jonjo Shelvey’s corner at the back post, but it was Elliot who was the busier keeper.

The Ireland international had to make made two stunning stops to keep his side ahead. He firstly turned away Walker’s volley and seconds later somehow stopped a Goncalves close-range header with a strong palm.

There were six changes at the break and two of those, Henri Saivet and Aleksandar Mitrovic, went closest to scoring in the opening quarter of an hour after the restart.

Other than those, though, the second half was a story of regular substitutions rather than anything particularly exciting in a football sense. The rain started to fall and the match ended in victory for Newcastle.

HEARTS: Hamilton; Smith (Brandon 75), Smith-Brown (Grzelak 58), Nowak (Petkov 84), Hughes (McGhee 74), Berra, Walker (Beith 86), Buaben (Martin 58), Stockton (Cochrane 67), Cowie (Currie 67), Goncalves (Sammon 80). Subs (not used): Noring (gk), Lafferty. NEWCASTLE (first half): Elliot, Clark, Lascelles, Mbemba, Haidara, Aarons, Shelvey, Diame, Atsu, De Jong, Gayle.

NEWCASTLE (second half): Elliot (Woodman 62); Gamez, Mbemba (Hanley 61), Lejeune, Dummett; Saivet, Diame (Armstrong 61); Perez, de Jong (Lazaar 75), Haidara (Colback 61); Mitrovic. Subs (all used).