Tony Watt hit his first goal for Hearts in injury time to snatch three points for his side against a valiant Partick Thistle at Firhill.
Thistle will be sick after losing the late goal, and while it will be little consolation, they more than played their part in an entertaining and whole-hearted encounter that was a great advert for the Premiership.
Callum Paterson had Hearts a little over quarter of an hour in with a header from a corner, before the same route to goal paid dividends for Liam Lindsay ten minutes into the second half as he brought Thistle level.
The game looked to be heading towards what would have been a deserved draw, before Watt popped up in the dying stages to pilfer the points for the Edinburgh side.
Hearts started the match well with Watt finding space in the box to get two efforts away that were blocked, before Thistle carved out a good opportunity at the other end.
The industrious Ade Azeez robbed Hearts left-back Feycal Rherras to feed Chris Erskine, whose shot was blocked back to him. This time he dinked a delightful ball towards the head of Kris Doolan, but his flick on goal cannoned to safety somewhat fortuitously off the face of John Souttar.
A poor header by Danny Devine then let Connor Sammon have a sight of goal which was saved by Tomas Cerny, before a similar effort from Kris Doolan for Thistle brought Jack Hamilton into action.
The tenacity of Ziggy Gordon then saw him win the ball high up the Thistle right from the erratic Rherras again. His layoff found Erskine but his shot was blocked before the rebound from Doolan went the same way.
The game was remarkably open, and play soon surged towards the other end as Sammon bundled through two challenges before winning a corner.
From the corner, Hearts took the lead, and it was as simple a goal as you will ever see with the home defence posted missing.
Sam Nicholson curled the corner high into the middle, and Paterson rose unopposed to plant a header back across Cerny and into the net.
He could have had an almost identical second ten minutes later as Nicholson’s delivery found him lurking at the back post, but this time his low header was gathered by Cerny.
Thistle regrouped, and Erskine latched onto a poor headed clearance to curl a low effort on goal that Hamilton helped around the post.
A lovely exchange inside the area between Stevie Lawless and Doolan then allowed the latter to get a low shot away, but again Hamilton was alive to the danger and got down well to gather.
Great play by Erskine in midfield then saw him evade two challenges before he fed Azeez, but Souttar, who was reading everything at the back for Hearts, was there again to block.
It had been an entertaining half of football,
The second half started in similarly open fashion, with Paterson allowed to run a long way unchallenged from his right-back berth to eventually get a shot on goal from the edge of the area that was too close to Cerny.
Erksine tried to slalom his way into the Hearts area soon after, but Rherras showed good pace and strength to slide the ball away for a corner.
That one came to nothing, but when Erskine won another shortly afterwards Thistle dragged themselves level with a goal that was strikingly similar to Hearts’ opener.
Erskine curled a ball in from the main stand side and Lindsay rose to crash a header off the underside of the bar with the ball bouncing down over line to give the home side parity – no less than they deserved at that stage.
They were almost ahead on the hour as a volley from lawless cannoned off Souttar, but fortune favoured the Hearts man as the ball dropped wide of the target.
A low cross from Paterson was then flicked towards the Thistle goal by Hearts substitute Bjorn Johnsen, but Devine was in close attendance to block behind.
A Jamie Walker curler was then beaten away by Cerny, before Arnaud Djoum worked some space for Johnsen in the area, but the forward took too long and ended up shooting tamely over.
Hearts were applying pressure as they looked for a winner, and Souttar thought he had it as he controlled with what looked to be a hand inside the area, but one of the several Thistle bodies that threw themselves at the ball managed to turn it over the bar.
They were floored in a different way though as the game ticked into added time, with a punched Cerny clearance being helped back into the area.
Watt latched onto the ball and kept his cool to finish across the Thistle keeper to send the huge Hearts following into dreamland.
PARTICK THISTLE: Cerny; Gordon, Devine, Lindsay, Booth; Osman, Edwards; Erskine, Doolan (Pogba, 77’), Lawless; Azeez (Amoo, 69’).
Booked: Osman (76’), Edwards (84’)
Scorers: Lindsay (55’)
HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN: Hamilton; Paterson, Rossi, Souttar, Rherras: Djoum, Kitchen, Cowie, Nicholson (Walker, 58’); Sammon (Johnsen, 58’), Watt.
Scorers: Paterson (16’), Watt (90’)
Man of the match: John Souttar (Hearts)
Referee: Willie Collum
Attendance: 4919
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