Motherwell moved into second place in the Scottish Premiership as Iain Vigurs' late strike gave them a 2-1 victory over Inverness.
Henri Anier's 39th-minute goal was all that separated the teams at the interval, before Ryan Christie brought Caley level with 16 minutes to play.
The hosts' European ambitions, however, suffered a blow when Vigurs scored eight minutes from time against the run of play.
Inverness manager John Hughes was forced to shuffle the pack with Josh Meekings suspended after being sent-off against St Mirren last time out, while Richie Foran (knee) and Aaron Doran (hamstring) remained on the sidelines.
Danny Devine came in to partner Gary Warren in central defence, while Ryan Esson, making his first appearance of the season, and Carl Tremarco were given starts. Dean Brill and Ryan Christie dropped to a six-man bench.
Motherwell made three changes from the side that were beaten 2-1 by Kilmarnock at the weekend.
Anier, Fraser Kerr and Jack Leitch replaced Lionel Ainsworth, Zaine Francis-Angol and Craig Moore, who were all amongst the substitutes.
With both teams looking to enhance their European aspirations, the game started brightly with chances at either end.
Esson had to punch away Vigurs inswinging free-kick, while Graeme Shinnie opted to try his luck from 25 yards with a drive that whistled narrowly past the upright.
Greg Tansey then had an effort from similar distance for Caley as the visitors partially cleared a corner, but it fizzed high over the crossbar.
Both teams were fancying their chances from distance, Craig Reid next to fire one in from 30 yards for Motherwell that stung the palms of Esson.
Neither side were posing a sustained threat in the final third until Kerr's long ball split the home defence, allowing Anier to run through and take a touch before clinically dispatching a low effort from 16 yards into the corner of the net via the inside of the post.
Inverness departed for the dressing room to audible jeers from some of the home support, frustrated by the lack of cutting edge shown by their team.
Motherwell looked content to sit in and soak up the pressure at the beginning of the second half, although Vigurs showed the visiting team were still a threat with a floated free-kick from 25 yards that landed on the roof of the net.
Inverness needed something to provide a spark for them in the final-third and only a fine block by Stephen McManus thwarted Tansey as he pulled the trigger from James Vincent's incisive pass.
Tansey then came even closer moments later, firing one in from 30 yards that had Gunnar Nielsen beaten, but rattled the post before bouncing away to safety.
Just as frustration was beginning to set in, substitute Christie breathed new life into Caley's chances of a victory with 74 minutes gone.
The ball broke to the youngster, a product of the club's youth system, and he struck it sweetly from 25 yards finding the corner of the goal beyond the dive of the despairing Nielsen.
Motherwell had barely been seen as an attacking force in the second half, but they would emerge with the three points courtesy of an 82nd-minute winner.
Devine was somehow left isolated with Vigurs and Craig Moore, who worked several passes between them, before Vigurs finished off the quickfire counter-attack with composed effort from just inside the 18-yard box.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article