Frank Gilfeather

The Dons hauled themselves back from a two-goal deficit in the first leg last week.

The English League One club will start the new season with an eight-point deduction because of a series of late payments to players.

Graeme Shinnie, reflecting on a whirlwind five months at Aberdeen, said the turnaround had been amazing.

There was no hiding the Aberdeen manager’s satisfaction as his determined Dons pulled of a feat thought out of their reach four months ago.

Aberdeen huffed and puffed without penetration while Hibs threw away a glorious opportunity as Kevin Nisbet had his penalty kick heroically saved.

Eight wins from ten Premiership fixtures meant the former Dons midfielder left club owner Dave Cormack with no option but to hand him the job.

The Pittodrie chief executive is well aware that they could be top targets for clubs south of the border or abroad.

Leighton Clarkson has two major aims as he looks ahead to leaving Aberdeen in the summer; that he can help cement a third-place Premiership finish for the Dons and, with it, European football, then head back to Anfield and establish himself in Jurgen Klopp’s squad.

Luis Lopes, the man they call Duk, underlined exactly why he is attracting attention from clubs south of the border with two strikes that brought his season tally to 17 and hoisted Aberdeen above Hearts and into third place in the Premiership.But Barry Robson, appointed Aberdeen manager until the end of the season and surely the front-runner for the job on a permanent basis, refused to be drawn on the race for third place and European football next term.Duk, meanwhile, took the plaudits for his opportunism in front of goal as team-mate Bojan Miovski provided the deadly passes that allowed the 23-year-old to find the net as Hearts’  inexplicable slump continued.It was the first time since 2015 the Dons had won five in a row – Derek McInnes, in the Kilmarnock dugout yesterday, was the last Pittodrie manager to oversee such a run – and it underlined Robson’s credentials as he eyes the job long term.Robson’s reorganisation of the Pittodrie defence through the introduction of Angus McDonald and Mattie Pollock as centre-backs, has proved crucial in their resurgence.“I’m not getting carried away,” he insisted, “because we’ve not achieved anything. I will sit down at the end of the season and see where we’re at.“Then I can maybe get carried away, but until then nothing changes and we move on to the next game. I have been in this game so long I know what’s round the corner, I know what can happen.“You have to be the best you can be every day and if you do that you’ll be okay. If you take your foot off the gas then you know what happens.“I never thought about third place then and I haven’t thought about it now, to be honest with you. I’m sure that’s where the club wants to be. Hearts, Hibs, everyone else wants to be there too.”Duk may have questioned the wisdom of those who eat baked beans as part of their full Scottish breakfast – a point he highlighted in an interview with a Portuguese publication last week – but he had Kilmarnock on toast with his stunning opener within 16 seconds of the kick-off.Miovski’s perfectly-weighted pass into the area for the former Benfica starlet brought the desired result in the blink of an eye as he smashed home from 12 yards with the Killie defence dazed and dazzled.The visitors’ response, however, was not to succumb to such a sucker punch. Rather, they re-grouped and, when permitted by the hosts, took the game to them in search of parity.Indeed, their determination was never more evident than in the closing stages of the first half as the home team’s goalkeeper Kelle Roos rescued the Reds twice in acrobatic style. His first save, from Christian Doidge’s sizzling strike from distance, was a real eye-catcher. It was quickly followed by another stunning stop, this time from a Liam Donnelly header.It was Robson’s raiders, however, who turned up the heart just before an hour had been played. Again, it was the Miovski-Duk double act that inflicted the damage with the latter stabbing the ball home from his unselfish team-mate’s final pass.For Killie the fight to avoid relegation continues and for McInnes there were few positives from this game.“It was an horrendous start for us,” he admitted. “Aberdeen got the break of the ball and you have to applaud the finish by Duk. He is in really good form, and his finish was different class. But it was not the start we were looking for. The players looked shocked; we all did.“We didn’t recover from that in the first 15 minutes. It unnerved us, but the back end of the first half I thought we were the better team and half time came at the wrong time for us. We had a bit of concerted pressure and we were in the game.“Ultimately, we have not taken our chances and Aberdeen were good for their 2-0 victory.”

The Dons have been in brilliant form under their new manager Robson.