Dundee 3 Hibs 3
A breathless 90 minutes ended with six goals shared and a point apiece for Dundee and Hibs.
The afternoon started with Owen Elding heading us in front early on before efforts from Simon Murray and Luke Graham turned the game on its head.
Ante Šuto and Jamie McGrath scored to put us ahead going into time added on before Cam Congreve produced a moment of magic right at the death to secure a share of the spoils.
We arrived in the City of Discovery this afternoon high in confidence following last weekend’s victory at Celtic Park. David Gray made one change to his side, with Dane Scarlett replacing Martin Boyle in our starting XI.
Warren O’Hora led the boys out this afternoon in an all-green kick and we were backed by another huge following from the Capital, as our supporters packed out the Bob Shankly Stand.
The hosts made a positive start and put us under early pressure through a series of corner kicks that we dealt with comfortably.
The first effort of note in the game came in the 7th minute when Ethan Hamilton met Congreve’s corner at the front post, however his glancing header went over the top of our crossbar.
Despite Dundee’s good start they would fall behind as we broke the deadlock with our first real break forward.
McGrath did well to hold the ball up on the left flank and roll it into the path of Nicky Cadden who whipped in a fantastic cross that Elding headed beyond Jon McCracken from close range.
It was Owen’s second goal for the Club following his January arrival.
Our lead would last only three minutes as Dundee hit back. A long ball from Graham allowed Murray to beat the offside trap, the striker then cut inside Rocky on the edge of the box before his shot took a big deflection off the back of the defender to take it beyond the despairing dive of Raphael Sallinger and into our net.
On 25 minutes, the impressive Tony Yogane got in behind us on the left and his cross-cum-shot flashed across the face of our goal, falling just behind Murray who would surely have tapped it in.
Elding’s goal aside, we were restrained well by Dundee - with the only other effort of note during the first half coming on 27 minutes when the young forward tried his luck from the edge of the box, though McCracken gathered comfortably.
On-loan Hearts playmaker, Yan Dhanda, had a couple of efforts from the edge of our box before the half-time break however both were dragged wide by the midfielder.
We started the second half looking much more like our usual selves and carved out three big opportunities in the opening 15 minutes.
The first came from a counter-attack and as Dundee retreated, Scarlett’s pass, intended for McGrath, took a big deflection off Ryan Astley to fall kindly for the unmarked Elding, only for the youngster to lash at the opportunity and shoot high and wide.
Moments later, Felix Passlack came in on the blindside of Imari Samuels to meet a Jack Iredale cross but he too failed to find the target from a good position.
Then, McGrath latched onto a Nicky Cadden cut-back and did well to turn away from his man before shooting over the crossbar from 12 yards.
On 66 minutes we made our first change with Šuto replacing the tiring Scarlett in attack.
We continued to carve our opportunities with Passlack again meeting a deep Cadden cross, only this time McCracken was perfectly positioned to save.
Against the run of play Dundee took the lead. After pushing out following a corner kick, Drey Wright’s ball back into the danger area was then turned home by Graham, who emerged unmarked from the pack.
Before play resumed, we made a double change with Boyle and Kai Andrews replacing Miguel Chaiwa and Iredale. We also moved to a flat back four.
Despite the setback we were quickly back on the attack with substitute Šuto shooting over from the edge of the box.
With six minutes remaining we deservedly equalised when Boyle’s pass over the top found the run of Suto, who brilliantly killed the ball with one touch before side-stepping McCracken and firing low into the net.
All the momentum was with us now and we incredibly scored a third in the 89th minute when McGrath gathered the ball on the edge of the Dundee box, evaded a couple of challenges and thundered a low shot past McCracken at his near post.
However, all credit to Dundee, as they snatched a dramatic leveller in the final of five added minutes when Congreve curled a wonderful finish past Sallinger with what would be the last kick of the game.