Aberdeen are up to third place in the Scottish Premiership as goals from Bojan Miovski and Luis ‘Duk’ Lopes gave the Dons a 2-1 win at Motherwell.
The Dons dug deep for their victory at Fir Park which was just their second away win in the league this season and their third in the last 24 away Premiership matches.
Dons boss Jim Goodwin made three changes, one of them enforced, for the trip to Fir Park.
Hayden Coulson, who scored his first goal for the club in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-final win against Partick Thistle in midweek, dropped out due to injury while Matty Kennedy and Vicente dropped to the bench.
Jack MacKenzie replaced Coulson at left wing back with Jayden Richardson on the right while Connor Barron also returned to midfield as Goodwin kept faith with his three-man defence for the third game in a row.
VAR makes it mark with Dons opener
The game against the Steelmen was the Dons’ first to be played with VAR in place. Andrew Dallas had the honour of being the VAR official with Euan Anderson the man in the middle on the pitch.
Dallas was just getting comfortable in front of the cameras when he was called into action and his first decision was a pivotal one.
Bojan Miovski did brilliantly to lift the ball over Well goalkeeper Liam Kelly after being sent clear by Leighton Clarkson only for the assistant referee’s flag to go up for offside.
A week ago that would have been that but 80 seconds of deliberation later and Miovski was deemed to have timed his run perfectly and the goal was given.
The Dons had the ball in the back of the net again 10 minutes later when Luis ‘Duk’ Lopes fired home his own rebound after Kelly had parried his initial header but once again the flag went up for offside.
This time, following much a quicker review, the offside decision was correct.
From the restart Motherwell had their best chance of the first half as Dons goalkeeper Kelle Roos failed to hold a ball after coming for it but Steelmen striker Kevin van Veen fired wide of the empty goal.
The game settled down following the early flurry of activity with chances at a premium although Duk did force Kelly into a save in first half stoppage time with the Well defence clearing the loose ball before Miovski could get to it.
Dons dig deep following Well equaliser
Aberdeen came out looking for a second goal to take firm control of the game and Duk headed wide from a Jayden Richardson cross.
But the Dons were caught by a sucker-punch as the home side drew level. It was all too easy as a throw-in down the right released substitute Connor Shields and he crossed for Stuart McKinstry who took a touch before turning and firing low past Roos.
Well were a team transformed by their equaliser and they nearly turned the game on its head by scoring a second but Roos did well to deny Kevin van Veen from six yards.
Roos’ save proved pivotal for the Dons as they regained the lead in the 68th minute.
Jack MacKenzie was the provider as his drive down the left and cross was expertly headed past Kelly by Duk for his third goal in three games as the Dons secured a valuable away win.