Hibs raced into a 4–1 lead in the first half, largely thanks to a hat-trick by Colin Nish. Giles Coke had equalised for Motherwell after Nish opened the scoring, but had then gifted Hibs their third goal, scored by Derek Riordan. Motherwell did pull a goal back before half-time through John Sutton, but two goals by Anthony Stokes after the restart seemingly put the game beyond doubt at 6–2. Within 15 minutes, however, Motherwell had reduced the deficit to 6–5, thanks to a simple tap-in by Coke, a Tom Hateley free kick and a Sutton header from close range. Substitute Ross Forbes then had the chance to equalise from a penalty kick with three minutes left, but it was saved by Graeme Smith, who had conceded the penalty in the first place. Forbes had taken the penalty despite the fact that Lukas Jutkiewicz was the nominated penalty taker; Jutkiewicz had deferred to Forbes as he was fresher, having only come on less than 10 minutes previously. In the third minute of injury time, Jutkiewicz produced a remarkable effort to score the equaliser, a goal that his manager Craig Brown compared to Marco van Basten's goal in the 1988 European Championship Final.