Aberdeen have been on some journey in 2023.
For three and a half minutes on Saturday, it looked as if it may have moved them the sum total of about 40 yards.
That is the rough distance between the blades of Hampden grass onto which Anthony Stewart deposited Fashion Sakala to needlessly torch the Dons’ chances of reaching last season’s League Cup final, and those where Jack MacKenzie downed Lewis Miller to seemingly do likewise this time around.
It would be a stretch to call it a lesson well learned.
The turnover at Pittodrie has been such that the only outfield player present on the pitch to deal with both foolish dismissals was Graeme Shinnie, and he needs little tuition in the areas of determination and focus.
Still, it was he who launched the match-winning attack, and it was one of such nature that MacKenzie’s dismissal may, if anything, have aided the Reds’ cause.
With Hibs over-committed trying to exploit their new-found numerical advantage, they left the back door unattended for the potential counter.
Against this Aberdeen side, a cardinal error.
It took only 12 seconds for a ball turned over on the edge of their own box to be lodged in the opposing net: precisely the time clocked by Nicky Devlin in Gothenburg and by Dante Polvara against PAOK.
This team have yet to hit upon a repeatable method of creating chances from their own possession, but they are brutal at slashing them from the opposition’s.
Here, when it counted most, that just happened to be precisely what was required.
MacKenzie has done a lot right in his recent spell in the side; curiously, this could be the most significant of them all.
He won’t play in the final but his teammates will, with another chance to create history.
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