Celtic seem intent on staggering rather than swaggering across the finishing line. They now must beat St Johnstone in their final match of the season at Celtic Park next Saturday to secure a title that has been theirs for the taking for some weeks.

There have been times on the run-in when Devon Loch looked more convincing than a Celtic team who appear to jib whenever the winning post comes within reach.

Requiring only victory yesterday against one of the poorer teams in the league, Wim Jansen's players seemed to have made the decisive strike through Simon Donnelly after 35 minutes. But a moment of carelessness eight minutes from the end allowed the Dunfermline substitute Craig Faulconbridge to steal an improbable equaliser.

"We were seven minutes from winning the league, then they scored a goal from nothing," Jansen said.

Despite not producing their characteristic stylish play Celtic had, until that lapse, comfortably contained a home team who had never looked like troubling Jonathan Gould.

Part of the reason for the lack of fluent movement was the capriciously bumpy East End Park playing surface; it was akin to asking the World Snooker Championship finalists to perform on torn cloth. Even so, Celtic gave themselves opportunities to lift their first championship in 10 years. Their profligacy was mainly to blame for their having to go to the last day.

Donnelly's goal was a low, rightfoot drive to the right of Ian Westwater from 12 yards after he received a through-ball from Henrik Larsson, who had just forced Westwater into two diving saves.

There was a moment, too, in the second half when the favourites were badly served by the referee John Underhill. As Larsson moved past Craig Ireland into the penalty area on the right, the Dunfermline defender pulled him down from behind and the legitimate penalty claims were refused.

The incident occurred only two minutes before the fateful substitution made by the Dunfermline manager Bert Paton, who pushed Faulconbridge on to replace Gerry Britton. Within five minutes the substitute was on the end of a long free-kick from Scott McCulloch and his header, from 15 yards, looped over the entire defence, including Gould, and dropped under the crossbar at the far post.

Celtic's squandered chance had been presented by Rangers' 1-0 defeat by Kilmarnock at Ibrox 24 hours earlier. It was Rangers' first defeat at home in the league this season and diminished not only their slender prospects of retaining the title but the joyous farewell planned by their manager Walter Smith and half a dozen players, all of whom will leave the club after the Scottish Cup final on May 16th.

Smith confessed that he had virtually resigned himself to the probability of losing the championship six weeks ago but that his hopes had been restored by Celtic's faltering in the closing stages. "But what happened in the last fortnight has been typical of our season," Smith said. "We simply haven't played well enough or achieved the right consistency."

Rangers gave an impoverished performance against Kilmarnock. They rarely threatened to score and the visiting goalkeeper Gordon Marshall had to make only one save. Kilmarnock were contrastingly crisp and intelligent with their passing out of defence, and their breaks could have brought a goal before the substitute Ally Mitchell's winner in the third minute of stoppage time.

Now two points behind Celtic with one match remaining, Rangers must win at Dundee United on Saturday and pray that their rivals fail to win at home. Jansen was undeterred: "We need to win the league by ourselves and I am confident we can cope."

Dunfermline: Westwater, Shields, McCulloch, Tod, Ireland, Huxford, Britton (Faulconbridge 77), Squires, Smith, French (Petrie 70), Millar (Bingham 70). Booked: Ireland, McCulloch, Millar. Goals: Faulconbridge 83.

Celtic: Gould, Boyd, Annoni, McNamara (Brattbakk 86), Rieper, Stubbs, Larsson, Burley, Donnelly, Lambert, O'Donnell (Wieghorst 87). Subs Not Used: Blinker. Booked: Annoni. Goals: Donnelly 35.

Referee: J Underhill (Edinburgh).