Celtic dismissed Hearts with such contemptuous ease that already the question is not if or when Martin O'Neill's team win the Premier League but if they will remain unbeaten in so doing.
The Irishman shuffled his pack following their Champions League qualifying victory over Ajax in Amsterdam and allowed himself the luxury of "experimenting" with Chris Sutton as a central defender in the certain knowledge that Henrik Larsson would continue to operate quite successfully with his new strike partner John Hartson.
Larsson duly confirmed that belief with both goals in the 2-0 win and although Hartson, still seeking full match fitness, missed several opportunities the Swede and his manager both reiterated their belief in the former Coventry City star's ability to score plenty of goals during the season.
Meanwhile at the back Celtic could have played Hal Sutton rather than Chris, such was Hearts' lack of ambition and paucity of attacking options and, although O'Neill described the former Chelsea star as "majestic" and "in the form of hi s life", it was impossible to gauge that against such woefully inadequate opposition.
O'Neill refused to criticise Hearts although his mask of diplomacy slipped a little when he declared: "I have never gone into a match thinking getting beaten would be a good score."
So Celtic march imperiously on and it is a measure of the difficulties their closest rivals Rangers are going through that their impressive 4-1 victory at Dunfermline was overshadowed by news of yet more injuries in the Ibrox ranks.
The captain Barry Ferguson is likely to be out of action for up to six months and the defender Craig Moore possibly faces four weeks on the sidelines, where a debilitating list has included Christian Nerlinger, Claudio Reyna, Ronald de Boer and Lorenzo Amoruso already this season.
Against Dunfermline, however, the much-criticised Bert Konterman emerged as the unlikely hero with two goals. Russell Latapy and Tore Andre Flo also scored and the East End Park side, who had Justin Skinner sent off late on, could boast only an own goal from the Rangers goalkeeper Stefan Klos as a consolation.
Those results produced a familiar Premier League table with the Old Firm occupying the top two positions after three matches.
The rest, inevitably, will scramble for European places and to avoid relegation and this early it would appear that Dundee are determined to finish higher than the sixth place they occupied at the end of last season.
They continued their excellent start with a 1-0 victory over newly-promoted Livingston courtesy of a Juan Sara goal while Hibs sealed a comfortable win over Aberdeen through a Franck Sauzee penalty and a fine effort from Tom McManus.
Dundee United's Danny Griffin scored the only goal of the day's other match to leave St Johnstone, many observers' pre-season favourites for relegation, languish at the bottom of the league with three successive defeats.
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