Although almost as detached from Riverside Olympic's Windsor Park as is geographically possible, the 22-year-old A-League champion swiftly adapted and capped a perfect debut with a clean sheet and assist.

Beechwood Park near Kilmarnock, in East Ayrshire, was the setting for the Scottish Cup fourth round tie between the West of Scotland League Premier Division outfit and high-flying Heart of Midlothian, who Atkinson has joined on a three-and-a-half-year deal.

A crowd of 3500 squeezed into the venue to see Robbie Neilson's men cruise through with a 5-0 win.

Atkinson, who had been an unused substitute when Hearts beat St Johnstone 2-0 in front of 16,589 at Tynecastle three days earlier, capped his debut by setting up Alex Cochrane for the team's fifth goal with a clever run and cross from the right.

Atkinson's display earned high praise from journalists and spectators alike and set up the former Melbourne City wing-back for a run of upcoming blockbusters.

Third-placed Hearts' next league match is against mighty Celtic, managed by former Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou, on Thursday.

The Edinburgh derby against cross-city rivals Hibernian is on February 2 followed by league leaders and reigning champions Rangers at the 50,000-capacity Ibrox Stadium on February 7.

Hearts' Twitter feed described Atkinson's display as "a solid first appearance for the Jambos" prompting plenty of positive feedback.

"I thought he was excellent today. No nonsense footballer who just got on with his job like he had been in the team all season. Fingers crossed he plays like this against premiership sides," said one fan.

"Way better than "solid", you're not doing him justice. A very impressive debut," added another.

A third said: "He will be one of Australia's best players in years to come."

Meanwhile, The Daily Record reported: "Fresh from the A-League final on the other side of the world, he'll have been well versed on the culture shock awaiting deep down in Ayrshire."

The Edinburgh Evening News added: "If there wasn't enough excitement around the addition of Melbourne City full-back Nathaniel Atkinson then the 22-year-old's comments at his first Hearts press conference will only add fuel to the already raging fire of expectation."

Atkinson, who also starred for the Olyroos at last year's Tokyo Olympics, described his first match for the club as "a good eye-opener and good experience".

Speaking on Hearts' social media streams, the former Riverside High student said he was getting acclimatised to the Scottish capital.

"It's cold but it's been pretty enjoyable," he said.

"It took a bit of time to get here with visas and all that so I had a bit of extended time with the family in Australia before I got here.

"I got my apartment so I've been running around getting some stuff for that and been through the city, seen the buildings, it's a beautiful city.

"I got to a point in my career where I was ready to test myself in Europe and luckily Hearts were interested at the time."

Atkinson said being on the bench for a Scottish Premier League match had whetted the appetite.

"It was amazing. Coming from Australia where it's not probably the number one sport I think we were playing between 4000 and 8000 people but to see a fully-packed stadium with fans that are passionate about the club it was an unreal experience.

"I'm so excited to play at Tynecastle. I know that Hearts fans bleed for the club and fight for the players. I can't wait to be part of that."

Atkinson said he was aware of Hearts' strong Australian connections which included reuniting with Olyroos teammate Cameron Devlin.

"We went to the Olympics together and he's definitely been looking after me and introducing me to people.

"It was definitely reassuring to see a lot of the boys come over, and pretty much every Australian that came here did well and made a good career out of it.

"When you hear that the club is interested you start to do your research as much as possible and look back at some of the games and you can see that it's a very physical league and the fans are crazy here.

"Coming to a big club like Hearts and playing in the Scottish Premier League, you see so many Australians doing well so the next step for me was definitely the move to Europe and a club where I could do well that would put me in the spotlight."

Asked what sort of player fans of the Jam Tarts would be seeing, he replied: "A player that takes orders, who will fight for the badge every day and run up and down, hopefully take on a few players, score a couple of goals and couple of assists but also hopefully help the team get a few clean sheets along the way. I'm quite an athletic player and I enjoy both attacking and defending so pretty much doing the same as I was down in Melbourne."