Balbriggan came to Porterstown to take on Celtic in what was to prove a battle royale. The visitors shot out of the blocks and were 2-0 up in the first quarter hour. However, Celtic have huge reservoirs of battling qualities, and they struck back to level things through Nick Pavlov to leave the sides all square at half time.

Balbriggan struck the front again, only to be pegged back by a Maxine header with 10 mins remaining. Yet again Balbriggan were in front when they expertly beat the Celtic keeper and it looked game, set and match to the visitors. But up popped the hat-trick hero, Nick Pavlov, and he hit a thunderous shot into the roof of the net that was too hot for the Balbriggan keeper to stop. 4-4 and a fair result to a game that neither side deserved to lose. see Gallery for action