Tarmo Kink took the heat off Middlesbrough boss Gordon Strachan to seal a 2-1 win over Burnley.
Clarets leave half-full Riverside empty-handed
Tarmo Kink took the heat off under-fire Middlesbrough boss Gordon Strachan as he came off the bench to seal a 2-1 win over Burnley.
The Clarets looked set to pile on more misery on Strachan's men when Andre Bikey scored in the 65th minute in front of a depleted Boro crowd.
The measly attendance of 15,033 at the Riverside Stadium were becoming restless until Kink hit a 79th-minute equaliser with his first touch before the Estonia midfielder produced a dramatic twist as scored an injury-time free-kick.
Chris Eagles and Jack Cork made their first Championship starts of the season for the Clarets after playing a telling role from the bench in Saturday's stunning 4-3 comeback win over Preston.
Strachan dropped Kink, Nicky Bailey and Kris Boyd from the Middlesbrough line-up that was humbled 3-0 at QPR.
Julio Arca, Andrew Halliday and Leroy Lita came into the starting XI, as did Justin Hoyte in place of the injured David Wheater.
Golden opporiunity
And the much-changed side had a golden opportunity to open the scoring in the fourth minute.
Lita whipped in a dangerous cross that his strike partner Scott McDonald inexplicably scooped over from close range.
Middlesbrough had made a bright start to the match and McDonald drew a sharp save from Brian Jensen before blazing over once more in the 25th minute.
Burnley then created their first chance of note when weekend hat-trick hero Chris Iwelumo headed Ross Wallace's measured delivery beyond the crossbar.
Another testing centre from Wallace led to Clarets centre-back Bikey thumping a header against the post five minutes before half-time.
Halliday found space to meet Barry Robson's 51st minute corner but could not find the target with his header.
Second half
Moments later Jensen produced an eye-catching double save from O'Neill, the first a particularly impressive stop from a close-range volley.
But Burnley started to enjoy their best spell of the contest, inspired in large part by Eagles' inventive running.
Boro were penned in their own half and after 65 minutes the seemingly inevitable happened.
Graham Alexander delivered the Clarets' latest dangerous set-piece - they scored twice from corners against Preston - and this time Bikey made no mistake, thumping a header past Jason Steele.
As sections of the sparse crowd began to voice their discontent, former Celtic boss Strachan responded by introducing Kink for O'Neill with 15 minutes remaining.
It proved to be a masterstroke when he opened his Middlesbrough account shortly afterwards, drilling home a first-time shot from 20 yards.
In the third minute of injury time Kink became the toast of Teesside.
