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Celtic started the game on fire. They were without Charles Mutawe injured and Owen Akpiama not available, but otherwise they had a full panel. The Boys had strength right across the team and their class showed after 1 mins and 14 seconds when the ball dropped to Adam Neto on the right hand corner of the box, the predominantly right footed youngster cracked a sensational left foot volley straight into the bottom corner of the net. No keeper would have got to that.
It wasn't long before Celtic scored again, this time it was Ugi Rowland volley in from a low cross netting first of 4 on the day. His second & third came after minute 11 and 12 giving Celtic a 4-0 lead after only 12 minutes. Cabinteely continued to play and stuck to their passing game, Andrew Cunnigham had to be sharp pulling off a number of save from the tricky number 9 but it was Celtic that struck again with quick combination play down the left had-side. Ciaran Mcgarry overlapped Brian Dalton who cleverly popped the ball over the opposing player, Mcgarry held the ball up for Dalton and he powered into the box and unleashed a left foot curler into the top right hand corner of the net. Mcgarry was soon on the score sheet himself, the attacking left-back went on a dazzling run from just inside the opposing half, he went past 3 players and with his right foot curled a beauty into the top left hand corner, he ran to the line to celebrate with his coaching staff - clearly something they had worked on in training.
Celtic mid-fielder Vilius Labutis was instrumental throughout, switching balls from left to right and controlling the tempo of the game from the middle, the central partnership with Neto was telling during the entire game.. Ugi was back on the score sheet after 33 minutes for his fourth of the game and Celtic's 7th. It was a sensational first half performance for the boys in Yellow but certainly didn't reflect the effort Cabinteely put in, having had several clear chances to score themselves including hitting the post.
Ben Blanche enter the field for Kevin long after 27 minutes just before Cabinteely pulled one back to leave the score at 7-1 to Castleknock Celtic at Half-time. An astonishing scoreline in their first official game of the season.
Celtic made 3 substitutes at H/T Aaron & Robert Lynch, Noma Erediawa replacing Dalton, Brighton Mubaso and Alan Elliot. The home side dominated the contest from start to finish and could have won even more convincingly as Lynch, Erediawa and Labutis all went close. Cabinteely also had chances but Celtic's back two combination of O'Reilly and Kitching were solid throughout the game.
Manager Robert Ryan, said after the game,
"It was a perfect start to the season, we couldn't have asked for a better performance. The lads have worked really hard for the last 6 weeks, taking in everything the Coach (Antonio) has been working on and this is their reward for that". "We were clinical today with our finishing." "It was collectively a very strong performance from all 15 players, we know we score goals and we showed that today."
