Young Celts sink Saints at Lennoxtown

SPFL Development League
Lennoxtown
Monday, May 4, 2015

CELTIC…2
(Chalmers pen.8, Johnston 76)

ST JOHNSTONE…0

GOALS in either half from Joe Chalmers and young debutant Michael Johnston saw Celtics Development Side put St Johnstone to the sword at Lennoxtown today (Monday).

Chalmers opened the scoring from the spot for the Bhoys after Derk Boerrigter was sent sprawling by the Saints goalkeeper.

And Johnston, only on a matter of minutes as a substitute, sealed the spoils with a crisp finish with around 15 minutes remaining in the second half.

That capped off a memorable afternoon for the U16 midfielder, who was one of several players from the younger age-groups to be given game-time for the second-string

Anthony Ralston, Innes Murray and Rory Currie all started for Stevie Frails side, having featured in last weeks Glasgow Cup triumph for the U17s.

Young goalkeeper Colin McCabe made his first start between the sticks, while Tom Rogic and Derk Boerrigter added some first-team experience to a youthful team.

And Frail was delighted at how an unfamiliar line-up gelled so quickly to stamp their authority on the match and deservedly collect the three points, a perfect fillip ahead of Thursdays Youth Cup semi-final against Hibernian.

Speaking to the official website, the coach said: I was really pleased with the level of performance, especially in the first half. The second half was a little bit scrappy, but it was a team that havent played or trained together.

We had three U17s starting, alongside Derk Boerrigter and Tom Rogic. It was a team put together with the game on Thursday against Hibs in mind.

We had the chance to play some of the younger lads who are doing well with the 17s. Mark Hill, Regan Hendry and Calvin Miller would all probably have played as well but they were all away with Scotland.

Three U17s we brought up were excellent, though, and it was good for them to play alongside guys like Rogic and Boerrigter and they will really benefit. Its credit to the Academy and the work that goes on with the 17s that three of them can come in and not look out of place by any means.

Colin McCabe got his first and kept a clean sheet, which was good as well, while two of the stalwarts of recent weeks Fiacre Kelleher and Jamie McCart played in central defence and were excellent.

I was really pleased with the attitude of the first team lads, we got a good performance from the normal squad and the three young lads also gave us a right boost.

The young Hoops saw their hopes of making it six-in-a-row in the league were dashed last week when they could only muster a draw against Falkirk. But Frail was delighted with the reaction from his charges

The attitude was spot on and thats what I would expect, he said. We have won the league for five years in a row and its hard to give it up, so to go out and put a performance on after the league has been decided was really pleasing and there are lots for us to build on.

In the second half, we had to make a few changes Tom Rogic went off and Jaison McGrath had to come off, added the coach. We were struggling in terms of numbers but we got the second goal through Michael Johnston.

Joe Chalmers made a great run into the box and fired it across and Michael has stepped onto it and finished fantastically from 10 yards out.

We had to go down to 10 men for the last 16-17 minutes because we had used all our three subs and Derk was feeling his hamstring. But we saw it out with 10 men and it was really pleasing.

CELTIC (4-2-3-1) McCabe; Ralston, Kelleher, McCart, Chalmers; Murray (OConnell 62), Rogic (Johnston 73); Currie, Duffy, Boerrigter; McGrath (Lafferty 24)
Not Used: McAdams, Kerr, Church