Tony Watt
Celtic’s double winning u-19 side slumped to a 3-0 defeat from Hearts in the final match of the season.
Islam Feruz’s first half red card together with an eighth match in 25 days proved too much for the double winners who lost two goals in the last five minutes.
Coach Stevie Frail made six changes to the side that beat Rangers on Wednesday with Robbie Thomson, Marcus Fraser, Feruz, Bahrudin Ataic,Liam Gormley and Tony Watt replacing Nick Feely, Matty Hughes, Callum Bagshaw, Greig Spence and the Twardzik twins Patrik and Filip.
Hearts made their intensions clear from the start with some crunching tackles flying in from the first whistle with Feruz a particular target.
The 15-year-old was yellow carded in the 24th minute after a late sliding challenge on a Hearts defender who had fouled him a minute earlier. Feruz was then red carded for lashing out with his hand while sitting down after another crunching tackle with the Hearts players applauding the decision from the referee and shaking each others hands at getting an opponent sent off.
“The result is a dampener but we’ve won the league well and thoroughly deserve to be champions,” Frail said afterwards. “The players were a bit low afterwards but they’ll soon realise what they’ve achieved this season when they get to Celtic Park tomorrow.
“When you go down to ten men any game is difficult- they just ran out of steam. They are exhausted after what they’ve put in over the last few weeks and obviously Wednesday night at Hampden took a lot of effort.
“Hearts are a good side, they pass the ball well but our work was done over the course of the season.
“Over the whole season I’m immensely proud of the whole squad, every one of them.”
The brightest performance of the day came from Tony Watt.
Game by game the former Airdrie striker has improved since moving to Celtic in January and found himself as a one man attack against Hearts.
The plan to have Ferux, Atajic and Gormley pushing up to support Watt were scuppered by Feruz’s red card but that didn’t prevent Watt from putting in a titanix second half effort.
“When we signed Tony it was with a view to going into the first team,” Frail admitted. “He was a handful today and kept the Hearts defence busy.
“We knew what we were getting from Tony when he came in. “We knew that there was a lot to work on including his fitness but he’s worked tirelessly since arriving. You can see what you are going to get, he still has to work on his fitness and we’re excited by him.”
Today’s defeat means that Celtic won the title by two points, scoring 74 goals in 22 matches, 21 goals more than Hearts.
CELTIC: Thomson; O’Donnell, Fraser, Toshney, Brennan (Lowdon 46); Feruz, Irvine, Atajic (Chalmers 73), McGregor, Gormley (Spence 65); Watt
SUBS: Feely, F Twardzik, George
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