Lawrence Shankland has popped up with an added-time winner as in-form Hearts defeated Hibernian 1-0 in a tense Edinburgh derby to tighten their grip on third place in the Scottish Premiership.
Five Socceroos started at Easter Road - Lewis Miller and Martin Boyle for Hibs and Kye Rowles, Calem Nieuwenhof and Nathaniel Atkinson for Hearts.
The game looked on course to end goalless after both Shankland and Boyle missed early penalties.
But the talismanic Jambos skipper sparked jubilation among the visiting support in the 93rd minute when he notched his 16th goal of the season to secure a third consecutive clean-sheet victory for the Tynecastle side.
🗣� "You just wait for that one moment and you can go home happy!"— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) Lawrence Shankland discusses his winning goal in the Edinburgh derby and watch as he celebrates with the fans after the game 🔽 pic.twitter.com/YfigmTJ0ZxDecember 27, 2023
Former Central Coast Mariners coach Nick Montgomery made three changes to his Hibs side that lost 1-0 at St Johnstone as Paul Hanlon, Elie Youan and another Australian Jimmy Jeggo dropped out.
Hearts were handed the chance to open the scoring in the fifth minute when they were awarded a penalty following a VAR review after Rocky Bushiri was deemed to have handled the ball. Shankland saw his low strike the outside of David Marshall's right-hand post.
Hibernian then had the opportunity to punish Hearts' top-scorer when they won a spot kick in the 14th minute after Dylan Vente's goalbound shot was blocked by the flailing hand of Rowles on the edge of the six-yard box. However, Zander Clark did superbly to get down to his right and push Boyle's effort onto the post.
Rowles made a couple of crucial blocks to stop a Vente header and then a Josh Campbell shot before substitute Kenneth Vargas fired just over from 20 yards out in the 68th minute.
Marshall then thwarted Shankland but the Jambos captain was not to be denied and he kept his cool to curl home a clinical, match-winning finish after finding himself space in the box following a long ball from Clark.
Earlier in the day, games at Ibrox and Pittodrie were postponed after extreme weather conditions caused travel problems in the north of Scotland.
Rangers saw their home game against Ross County called off as snow prevented the visitors travelling down the A9.
The postponement means Rangers will go into Saturday's Glasgow derby at Celtic Park five points behind the leaders with two games in hand.
Motherwell got to Aberdeen early but many supporters of both clubs were stuck as roads were closed because of flooding in the north east.
It was a second postponement in a row for both County and Aberdeen, who saw their weekend games fall foul of waterlogged pitches.
Elsewhere, Socceroo Keanu Baccus' fifth-placed St. Mirren were beaten 1-0 by fourth-placed visitors Kilmarnock and St. Johnstone drew 0-0 at home with bottom-placed Livingstone.