I think I approached this game with a degree of foreboding, knowing that Easter Road had not been the happiest of hunting grounds in the past, and also aware that a defeat here would mean no treble.
At half time I was reconciled to a draw – indeed the first half had been devoid of good football – but also happy about the idea because it would mean that we would be allowed to wear the green and white hoops while Hibs played in some awful strip, and we would surely beat them before a 60,000 crowd at Parkhead.
Indeed, I even allowed my cynical mind to dwell on the idea that the treasurers of both clubs would welcome this idea of a replay.
Such were my thoughts at half time, but what a transformation in the second half, as we just piled on the pressure and scored two wonderful goals to send the Celtic end into raptures!
I was away up at the top (in the old days in the theatre, this was called “the gawds”) and had a wonderful view of James Forrest and Scott Brown’s lovely strikes, and also everyone beneath me going crazy, as they relentlessly sang their songs about the unforgiven one.
It was hard to pick a man of the match tonight, but I thought that Scott Brown and Nir Bitton were outstanding in the second half. Kieran Tierney had a poor, error-ridden first half but improved immensely in the second half, while Mikael Lustig proved to us all that he is not finished yet.
Oliver Burke once again showed his pace, while French Eddy was always a potential threat. The defence was sound and never really looked like giving anything away.
There were two down sides tonight as far as Celtic were concerned. One was that clown who threw the flare, and the other was that we seemed to pick up a few injuries towards the end.
Those, in addition to the injuries already sustained (McGregor, Rogic, Christie and others), might cause us a few problems later on this season, but at least now, we are down to one game a week with the April 3 game against St Mirren the only remaining scheduled midweek game.
This game did not seem to have all that much going for it. The weather was squally and wet, the kick-off time was the crazy one of 5.15 pm (neither one thing nor the other), Celtic having to wear that horrible strip, the strange, incomprehensible few days leading up to the game – but congratulations are due to Neil Lennon and his men for their achievement in reaching the Scottish Cup semi-final, where we can now sit back and watch the other games.
We would like it to be Aberdeen, Inverness and Partick Thistle, but I suspect it will be Rangers, Dundee United and Hearts. No matter! We are a match for anyone.
Hibs were a disappointment to their fans, but to those bitter Hibees who seemed to think that the events of this week were all set up so that Neil Lennon could come back to Celtic Park, I say two things. Why could you not fill the seats at your own end for a game like this? And, more basically, why not come and join us?
Mr Collum made one bad mistake, I felt, when we should have had a foul outside the box early in the second half when Olly Burke seemed to be pulled down, but Collum was tolerably fair otherwise.
As for the Hibs Directors, I have several points. One is that you must find out who the bottle thrower was (and his cheering, encouraging mates), you should also consider giving Celtic fans even more tickets as you cannot persuade your own fans to fill all their seats, and the other is that exiting from the ground is quite a crush and quite dangerous as the top tier comes down and joins the bottom tier trying to exit.
That, frankly, is an accident waiting for a time to happen, and the final annoying point is that bottle neck at that bridge over the old railway. Fortunately no-one acted foolishly or got too impatient, but it may happen some day.
David Potter
