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Lakelands came to Porterstown Park for this important league game. With St John Vianney Boys breathing down Celtic’s necks with 3 games left, there was no room for a slip-up. There was good support for Celtic on a gorgeous sunny day. Celtic were confident having won their last four league games which has taken them to the top of the table. more action
Lakelands have been having a tough time this year, but you would not have believed it in the first half. They fought for every ball and Celtic were finding it difficult to make a breakthrough. The home side were having lots of possession, but they preferred to shoot from wide positions instead of crossing into the box for their team mates to finish.
Celtic’s finding it very difficult to breach the opponents’ defence was largely due to an immense performance by the Lakelands’ goal keeper Sam McKeever. He made a lengthy succession of saves to keep a clean sheet for most of the first half. It took 25 minutes for James Bannerman to eventually give Celtic what they needed. He did it a few weeks ago in a crucial game away to Vianney Boys when he whipped a dipping shot over the keeper. He replicated this again today with a sublime finish when he hit another dipper in over the keeper from 15 metres. 1-0 half time.
The half time break gave the Celtic coaches an opportunity to reinforce their message that the lads needed to play as a team, looking up and finding a team mate, and increasing their work rate. The second half performance showed what they are capable of.
Within a minute of the restart, Alvaro Moreno was on target with his clinical finish into the bottom left hand corner of the net, which doubled Celtic’s advantage. 2-0.
Halfway into the half, James went close to scoring again, being denied by Sam McKeever once more in the Lakelands’ goal. 2 minutes later, Costel Burlacu broke into the Lakelands’ half, and shot brilliantly over the opposing keeper into the top far corner. 3-0.
16 minutes into the half, Alvaro was again on the mark when he shot into the net off the right hand goal post. Lakelands were still battling, and it needed Ruben Ahern and Ren Mulligan to be combative in the middle to stifle potential attacks. The backline was intent on keeping the visitors at bay, and full credit to Conor Lawless, Joseph Dunne and Ahmad Niazi who succeeded with Theo Hennessy in goal to ensure they did not concede. The defence was so secure that Theo was rarely troubled. Joseph was enjoying venturing forward and went close to scoring with a couple of chances.
Rei Mulligan went close to increasing Celtic’s lead 18 minutes into the second half. In the dying minutes however, Pedro Moreno who had gone close himself earlier, put James Bannerman through on goal with a beautifully-weighted pass and the striker was lethal in finishing with aplomb. He was to go close once more before the finish. A devastating exhibition of scoring by the Celtic front men had ended in a 6-0 victory.
Celtic will resume their league campaign on Tuesday at 7.30pm in Sandyford again against Lakelands. They have been alerted that they need to remain focused, with just 2 games left to be played.
