Hearts 3-4 Celtic: Greg Taylor’s first league goal for league leaders sees them

Scottish football witnessed major VAR controversy in the system’s second game in use as Celtic beat Hearts 4-3 in a thriller at Tynecastle.

Hearts substitute Lawrence Shankland hit a hat-trick but was upstaged by the cinch Premiership leaders, who secured the points thanks to Greg Taylor’s 76th-minute winner.

James Forrest, Giorgos Giakoumakis and Daizen Maeda also netted as the lead changed hands several times.

A pulsating match was also overshadowed by some hotly debated decisions involving the newly introduced video technology.

Decisions were confirmed by VAR checks during St Johnstone’s win over Hibernian on Friday, and the first intervention across Edinburgh came in first-half stoppage time when referee Nick Walsh was told to look again at Cameron Carter-Vickers’ challenge on Cammy Devlin by video assistant Steven McLean.

Walsh went to his monitor to watch footage which clearly showed Devlin got the ball before being brought down. Shankland netted from the spot to make it 1-1.

Moments later Celtic appealed for a penalty when the ball hit Michael Smith’s arm in the box after being flicked up by Forrest. Walsh again played on and, after a much shorter delay while McLean checked the footage, the game continued.

Smith had appeared to move his arm towards the ball and Celtic manager Ange Postecolgou could not believe the decision, laughing and clapping sarcastically.

There was an earlier contentious decision as Anthony Ralston had a goal disallowed, and the video official then ordered a retake of the home team’s second penalty of the day.

How the drama unfolded at Tynecastle

The tone for the game was set early. Barrie McKay saw a first-time effort saved by Joe Hart and Maeda was off target from a similar opportunity.