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A strange game this one indeed. Sacred Heart came to Porterstown having started the season well, and would have fancied their chances against a Celtic team that had not done well in their opening league games. Celtic did however have a very powerful performance against St Kevin’s Boys in the Cup and their intention was to build on that victory.
Sacred Heart made the breakthrough with less than 3 minutes gone. The home side wasted little time and were soon back on level terms when they won a corner kick. Up stepped Gavin Peters who saw an opportunity with his trusty left foot. He had scored direct from a corner in their previous win against SKB, and he repeated the feat this time taking advantage of the significant wind blowing behind his team in that first half.
The game ebbed and flowed, and there were chances at either end, but Ethan Hoey making his debut in his new team was magnificent. He made a series of stops throughout the game that earned him the man of the match award, though he was pushed closely by his central defender, Cillian Garvey, who was a colossus at the back, not of the physical stature of the original Red colossus, Ron Yeats, but with the same battling resolve. Callum Coffey worked hard in the middle of the park, pressing forward when he got the opportunity. Brierton Murphy, Daniel Cryan and Michael Kelly were also strong at the back, each enjoying their debuts. Andrew McGee on the right hand side of the defence again gave 110 per cent effort. Jerome Powell was again very effective on the right side of midfield, linking particularly well with Oleg Sinkevics. It was Oleg who was to make his mark in a significant way that would separate the sides. On 15 minutes, Celtic won a free kick on the left hand side. Coach Jerome urged Gavin into the box, leaving Oleg to use his vicious right foot. He stepped forward and seconds later the ball was nestling in the corner of Sacred Heart goal - a superb strike.
The visitors drew level again soon after, but Oleg was to excel his earlier strike with his second goal. He picked the ball up in the middle of the park, jinked forward, leaving a succession of opponents in his wake before he unleashed a beauty that shot into the right hand corner of the goal. That put Celtic into a lead that they were never to relinquish.
In the second half Anthony Cooke took over on the right hand side of the midfield and helped to stem Sacred Heart attacks, while supporting Celtic attacks. Matei Domsa was his terrier self and did not give the opposition a moment on the ball without getting his tackle in. Oisin Dunne was in imperious form when he came on for the second half, showing an abundance of pace and power in equal measure. Alex Phelan took over the centre forward role after the break and was unlucky not to connect when Calum Daly raced forward on the left beating defenders before crossing into the Tallaght team’s goal area. Calum was being a real threat to the opposition and for the second game in succession, he put in an excellent performance. It was however an amazing sequence of events that brought the game to an end. Calum was battling for the ball on the left but was met by an equally determined Sacred Heart opponent. The exchange between them was a little too robust for the referee and he decided to give them yellow cards to calm the pair down. The Sacred Heart lad got upset at the caution by the ref, and uttered expletives which the game official could not ignore. The red card was shown, and the cautioned player was on his way. His reaction was such that the ref quickly brought proceedings to an abrupt end.
The whole Celtic squad put in a great shift today and they can look forward to their future games having kickstarted their season with back to back wins.
