From Newcastle's perspective it would have felt like unnecessary late drama. For Scott Parker and Burnley, a huge missed opportunity.
An opportunity to arrest a run of defeats that's threatening to do huge damage to their survival chances.
Burnley were spirited at St. James' Park. They ought to have made more from a start to the game that saw them trouble Newcastle.
It took Bruno Guimaraes' extraordinary piece of opportunism to snap any Burnley momentum and the away side unravelled with Lucas Pires' red card and then the gifting of a penalty before the break.
But Burnley don't tend to lose heavily. Only two of their 11 defeats this season in the top flight have been by more than two goals.
And they hung in on Tyneside. Some of it luck, some of it down to anxiety from the home team - anxiety which increased when Zian Flemming scored the penalty which felt like it had came too late, but actually wasn't, given the golden chance Burnley squandered in the last action of the game.
And that's where Burnley's biggest limitations appear to lie, lacking the required conviction and razor-sharp accuracy that's so often needed in the Premier League to win games - and it wasn't just one player guilty of lacking it.
It's a concern not easily remedied in January. The sooner Armando Broja, who started for the first time for Burnley at Newcastle, ends a wait of the more than two years for a Premier League goal, the better those chances of not going down might become.