Kyle Lafferty has yet to kick a ball for Norwich this season, but his seventh goal of the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign moved Northern Ireland one step closer to the promised land.
Lafferty is leading a Jekyll and Hyde existence at present - unstoppable as his country seek a first major tournament appearance in 30 years but virtually invisible at Carrow Road.
He was allowed to join Turkish side Rizespor on loan for the second half of last season and has trained only a handful of times with the Canaries this term due to a knee injury.
But that has not stopped his star growing back in Belfast, where his irresistible scoring streak continued with an injury-time equaliser in Monday's 1-1 draw against Hungary .
His lack of match conditioning almost saw him substituted at Windsor Park, but that idea disappeared as soon as Richard Guzmics put the visitors in front after a dreadful handling error from Michael McGovern.
"Kyle gives the squad belief and there's no greater testament to that than what we saw here," said Northern Ireland boss Michael O'Neill, whose side remain top of Group F with two games to play.
"We were taking Kyle off at 0-0 but by the time we were ready to make the change it was 1-0 and it suddenly changed.
"Kyle hasn't played a single minute of club football this season, or in pre-season, and he was really struggling.
"We just felt he couldn't give us any more. But the thing about taking off Kyle is you're taking off your talisman.
"If I'm the opposition manager I'm happy to see Kyle going off so we didn't want to give them that hope or satisfaction.
"At 1-0 it was essential to keep him on the pitch. He treaded water for the last 20-25 minutes but he was there at the right time."
Hungary now need to win their two remaining matches to deny Northern Ireland a top-two finish, while one more victory is enough for the boys in green.
Lafferty, though, will miss next month's clash with Greece after picking up his third booking of the campaign.
Conor McLaughlin suffered the same fate but O'Neill is pondering an appeal over Chris Baird's red card after the Derby captain was cautioned for two separate tackles in the same passage of play.
"In my whole time in football I've never seen a player booked twice in that situation. We'll have to look at that very closely," he said.
"There's no doubt he should be booked for the second tackle but if he knows he's being booked for the first he won't make the next tackle.
"I can't pretend I know the rules well enough to say if it's legitimate or not but I think it's a very, very harsh decision.
"For a player to be sent off like that could have cost us a place at the finals."
Source: PA
