McInnes brought on Blair Spittal, the hero of Easter Road, for the ineffective Islam Chesnokov. Spittal was deeply influential in everything he did in attack and defence. Immense. He sparked the comeback and the elation. Everybody else flowed in behind. Rohl and Rangers sank like a stone in the water.
Claudio Braga, who had looked like he was trying to trap a balloon earlier on, was now running with more menace and purpose. The charge of the maroon cavalry was gathering pace. You could sense it, you could almost reach out and touch it.
Eight minutes into the new half, Alexandros Kyziridis forced a save from Jack Butland, who had gone virtually untested in the opening spell. A minute or so after that, Tynecastle erupted to the sound of liberation from the torture of that first half.
Kyziridis, a huge force as the game went on, slapped a shot off Butland’s right-hand post, the rebound falling to Stephen Kingsley, a powerhouse when the heat came on, and he stabbed it into the ground and past the Rangers’ goalkeeper.
The noise – lasting and deafening – rose up and swirled around like a typhoon, gathering up everybody in its vicinity, delirious Hearts folk thrilled to be sucked into the vortex.
When Tynecastle is like this, it’s hard to rival, a cacophony greeting every 50-50 tackle, spleens vented at a throw-in given the other way, gaskets were blown amid the mortal sin of Rangers being given a free-kick when, of course, they didn’t deserve it.
Then it all increased another notch. If the maximum decibel level was a 10, this one went up to 11. Kingsley started it and, boy, did Shankland finish it, sweeping a first-time left-foot shot low past Butland. From 1-0 down to 2-1 ahead, from deep concern to utter bedlam in 18 breathless minutes.
Shankland is a colossus around here. Ask Hearts fans about the great sites of their wonderful city and they’ll mention the castle and Calton Hill and Arthur’s Seat and any number of other attractions, but they’ll also tell you of the marvels of Shankland in full flow – his leadership and his finishing. That goal, unerring and beautiful, could prove to be one of the most storied strikes in the history of the club.
This was Hearts taking another giant stride towards immortality and it was Rangers being removed from the race, shunted out of the way by a team that found itself at half-time, that showed character and bottle and class when they might have spontaneously combusted from the pressure of trailing and toiling.
What has made this season dramatic is the number of times late goals have turned defeats into draws and draws into victories. It’s happened over and over and over again. You expect the unexpected. Thelo Aasgaard hitting the Hearts crossbar with a dozen minutes left to play was another reminder of the turbulence of these games.
The chance came and went as did Youssef Chermiti’s late header, high, wide and far from handsome. That was the cue for the euphoria, the unleashing of a force that is really beginning to look irresistible.
“Pure theatre,” said McInnes, later, of the home crowd, “What a noise it was.” And what a noise it will be as the last days of this extraordinary season play out.
