No-one could wipe the smile off Jackson Irvine’s face at Hampden on Monday night as he led Celtic up to collect the SFA Youth Cup.
The midfielder capped his own driving performance with a goal while his midfield partners Callum McGregor, John Herron, Filip Twardzik and Dylan McGregor split the other seven strikes amongst themselves.
Two years after arriving in Glasgow from Melbourne life couldn’t be much better for the 19-year-old who could be the next kid to get a taste of first team action.
“It’s a great honour to walk up the steps for a trophy is something that I’ll never forget,” he recalled. “It was a great experience and I’m so proud of all the players and coaches.
“To be the one that got to walk up for the trophy was a great honour.
“It’s a strange feeling, even when we are facing problems or obstacles I’ve never felt for a moment that we weren’t capable of coming through and achieving our goals.
“I could rave about the ability in this team all day, some people have said it’s the best young Celtic team in a long time, we’ve broken just about every record you can find.
“There’s not been a moment of doubt in my mind, even when we were a goal down at St Mirren in the cup or the SPL games when we were pushing for a goal I knew that we had players capable of producing something special.
“That ability and the team spirit got us over the line.
“In the first half of the season we lacked a bit of togetherness, we dropped a few points at home. Away from home we won 10 out of 11, drawing the other and that’s incredible- you don’t see that in any league.
“People asked if we got nervous when we lost Paul George through injury, when we lost Tony Watt to suspension but not for a second was I concerned. The ability that we have throughout the squad is great, there’s a lot of depth with players like Lewis Kidd, Jamie Lindsay and Stuart Findlay stepping in and doing a job.
“James Alabi has come in over the last few weeks and did a good job at Hampden after scoring in the SPL. There’s not been a moments doubt in any player.”
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