Within three hours the destiny of the Premiership title race was transformed.
One stunning strike from Tom Rogic at Rugby Park rescued Celtic from a fortnight long inquest over another flat performance that looked like shipping two points at Kilmarnock.
A couple of hours later Aberdeen missed the chance to cut the deficit back to four points when they lost at Motherwell despite taking the lead through a Kenny McLean penalty.
By tea-time Rogic’s goal had taken on an extra significance with the young Australian delighted to have made such a telling contribution to the title race.
“I don’t think I’ve scored a better goal,” he revealed. “It was a special moment and it’s a goal I won’t forget any time soon. It was obviously very important for the club, given the circumstances, so I was just delighted to change the match and have an influence.
“There wasn’t much time left, and as a substitute you try and have an influence on the match any time you come on and fortunately I was able to do that, and I’m just happy to help the team and get the win.”
Rogic added: “First and foremost, we’re a team and we’re all in this together so it’s good to come on and help them, and to change the match is something special. We have a lot of players here who’re capable of doing that.
“This time it was me and, of course, when you see the fans celebrating like that, you realise how much it means to them, and how much it means to the coaches so it was a special moment.
“I knew there was only about 10 minutes left when I came on and you try to do your best to have an influence – it doesn’t always work out like that but I’m just delighted.
“Given the manner in which we won – scoring so late away from home but in front of so many of our own fans – hopefully that can spark us to kick on from here and perform to the best of our abilities until the end of the season and keeping up points and win some trophies.”
Celtic are next in action on April 2 when a home win over Hearts will put Ronny Deila’s side seven points ahead of Aberdeen with the Dons visiting Hamilton the following day.