Hibs left it late but have ended their losing streak in the Premiership after late goals from Kevin Nisbet and Jamie Murphy snatched a 2-1 win against ten-man St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park.
Callum Davidson made three changes to the side that lost out to Celtic at Hampden last weekend as Chris Kane, James Brown and David Wotherspoon all drop out of the side and Lars Dendoncker, Ali Crawford and Eetu Vertainen coming into the starting XI.
With Kane suspended and Wotherspoon joining Stevie May and Glenn Middleton out injured, newly-signed winger Viv Solomon-Otabor was named among the subs for the hosts.
Hibs boss Jack Ross also made three changes from the loss to Ross County in midweek; replacing suspended top-scorer Martin Boyle with Jamie Gullan, Ryan Porteous returning from a ban to take over from Darren McGregor in defence and Jamie Murphy coming in for Christian Doidge after he lost his appeal against a red card picked up in Dingwall.
The Easter Road side had the ball in the back of the net within the opening ten minutes, Nisbet reacting well to get on the end of a flicked pass before slamming the ball home before the assistant flagged what appeared to be a very tight offside call.
Jack Ross’ side kept the pressure up, Gullan going close as they pushed hard for the opener as they looked to bring their five-game Premiership losing streak to an end – and they looked in good shape to do it until the first half burst into life.
With five minutes to go until the break, it was St Johnstone who finally broke the deadlock when Liam Gordon headed home to give Callum Davidson’s side the lead before veteran Craig Bryson picked up his marching orders mintues later when he picked up his second booking of the afternoon.
Hibs came out swinging after the break and Chris Cadden must have thought he’d pulled the Hibees level as he watched his effort crash off the crossbar after Paul Hanlon had a great chance to pull Hibs level but fluffed his lines.
Kevin Nisbet had the ball in the net for a second time just after the hour mark but, again, fell victim to the officials as his effort was ruled out for offside with Hibs continuing to press for the equaliser.
Nisbet would almost turn created soon afterwards, Jamie Murphy getting on the end of a clever flick-on from him, and the former Scotland winger came close to making an immediate impact when Zander Clark had to make a smart save to stop Murphy’s goal-bound volley.
After having the ball in the net twice already, Nisbet finally got his goal with little over five minutes remaining for Hibs to somehow turn the game on its head and snatch a late winner – Murphy and Nisbet again combining but this time the Hibs number 15 stayed onside and fired beyond Clark to level things up.
A frantic final few minutes saw Hibs try desperately to grab a second and it came in 86 minutes, Murphy putting the ball into the back of the net and topping off an impressive cameo from the bench from the winger as the Cabbage left the home fans stunned.
St Johnstone: Clark; Dendoncker, Gordon, McCart; Rooney, Davidson, Bryson, Booth; Crawford, O’Halloran Vertainen.
Substitutes: Parish, Brown, Ambrose, Devine, Craig, MacPherson, Solomon-Otabor.
Hibernian: Macey; McGinn, Porteous, Hanlon; Cadden, Doyle-Hayes, Campbell, Newell, Doig; Nisbet Gullan.
Substitutes: Dabrowski, Stevenson, Allan, Murphy, Gogic, Wright, Scott.
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