This was a night when Tynecastle became a war zone. A stage for the kind of phlegm-specked aggression last witnessed in Edinburgh when Francis Begbie was in his Trainspotting prime.
There was little or no finesse. Nor a goal to speak of.
Yet this was as far removed from a lacklustre goalless draw as it’s possible to envisage. It was, in the end, a shameful affair.
In the midst of a ludicrous five minutes when visiting striker Florian Kamberi was red-carded and tempers flared, a Hibs fan tried to poleaxe Zdenek Zlamal, the Hearts keeper collapsing to the deck.
In the second minute of stoppage time Hibs boss Neil Lennon — attacked at the same venue six years ago — was felled by a coin thrown from behind the technical area, his reaction to a disallowed Hearts goal for Clevid Dikamona tipping some of the home supporters over the edge.
The catalyst for the mayhem arrived in 64 minutes. Hibs were reduced to ten men when Kamberi charged into a mid-air challenge on Australian Ollie Bozanic. In isolation, the challenge barely merited a second yellow card for the Swiss Under-21 international.
Neither did it merit the melee which saw Kamberi and Ben Garuccio chasing each other around the fringes, the plot well and truly lost.
A flash of red served only to inflame passions. Lennon was incensed by the decision of referee Andrew Dallas to send the striker off and he wasn’t alone.
Within four minutes Zlamal was lying prostrate in front of the visiting support.
Trying to restart the play after a harmless shot drifted wide, the Hearts goalkeeper had the ball thrown hard at his groin by a Hibs fan, another taking an apparent swing at the Pole.
Throw in the flares and the pyrotechnics and this was a flammable encounter more suited to Bonfire Night than Halloween.
Hearts manager Craig Levein entered the game with an infantry shortage so grim he almost brought back conscription.
Steven MacLean served the first game of his two-match suspension after the Tynecastle club decided against an appeal for the manhandling Celtic’s Eboue Kouassi in an intimate area.
Top scorer and talisman Steven Naismith faces two months on the sidelines with a knee problem. Uche Ikpeazu and defender John Souttar are out for five months. And captain Christophe Berra won’t be back until the New Year.
Desperate times called for desperate measures and the injury situation at Tynecastle is a bit more desperate than most.
An effective signing in a holding midfield role, Peter Haring can also play in defence if the need arises. Nobody saw him as a striker. Yet here was the Austrian, pushed up front as a no-nonsense target man, young Callumn Morrison asked to feed off the scraps. And there weren’t too many of those.
Meanwhile, Marvin Bartley’s presence in the heart of Lennon’s midfield suggested this was a night when the Hibs manager recognised the need to sacrifice a little of his team’s flair and footballing ability to match their opponents in the engine room.
It’s a patchy fixture this. One where the thumping tackles and bone-shuddering challenges can make the eyes bleed. True to form, Bartley was lucky to escape a straight red card for a reckless challenge on Haring.
Referee Dallas had a perfect view, but settled for a yellow card. The fact they had played just 13 minutes may well have had a bearing. It shouldn’t have.
Yet for Hibs the end justified the means. Hearts made the stronger start of the two sides, Olly Lee’s thumping 20-yard strike pushed wide by Adam Bogdan. Bartley’s no-holds-barred tackle whipped the wind from the Hearts sails. It might be a coincidence, but the game seemed to change instantly.
Hibs seemed to wake up. They began creating chances, playing the football.
At the heart of their invention was Stephen Mallan; at times he was a joy to watch. Signed from Barnsley, the former St Mirren midfielder offers different attributes to John McGinn.
On nights like this, where craft and creativity are as rare as a show of contrition from MacLean, that’s no bad thing.
With nine goals already this season, Mallan came to within inches of No 10 when he cracked a dipping strike from 20 yards onto the crossbar with Hearts keeper Zlamal flailing to get there.
Embarrassed by Celtic’s second goal in Sunday’s Betfred League Cup exit, people kept a close eye on the Hearts keeper for collateral damage here and Mallan, in particular, seemed hell-bent on testing the Pole to the full.
Presented with a free-kick moments later, the ball dipped inches wide of the postage-stamp corner.
The Edinburgh derby isn’t noted for it’s flowing football. What creativity there was came from Hibs, Mallan’s set-piece menace posing real problems. He was into everything. He topped off a heck of an opening half hour by forcing Zlamal to scramble across his line. Expecting a free-kick towards a crowded back post a cheeky effort went towards the other side instead.
Banked away to the other side of the ground in the Roseburn Stand, the Hibs support lapped it all up. Hearts fans settled into a pensive silence.
There were no easy answers for Levein. Harry Cochrane and Craig Wighton offered some invention on the bench. Yet as Haring galloped around up front, throwing his body into lost causes, it was clear what Hearts lacked most. A natural goalscorer.
Hibs lost one of their own when the game entered five minutes of hot-headed insanity.
Booked for persistent fouling in the first half, Kamberi’s mid-air coming together with Bozanic was a dubious reason to send him off. Engaging in an unwise, heated spat with Garrucio, the striker’s dismissal incensed Lennon.
The response of the Hibs boss to Dikamona’s disallowed goal seconds into four minutes of injury time was too much for some. Attacked by a Hearts fan in the same dugout as manager of Celtic, BT Sport pictures showed a coin striking the Northern Irishman’s cheek, anger turning to alarm as he fell to the deck holding his face.
There may not be a government summit. Yet the repercussions of a night of high emotion on Gorgie Road will be felt for weeks.