Celtic started their Glasgow Cup campaign with a 2-2 draw at Lennoxtown against Queens Park.
Ciaran Lafferty opened the scoring in the third minute for Celtic but the Spiders hit back to take the lead early in the second half before Luke Donnelly equalised with 20 minutes left to play.
The round robin tournament provides players with at least eight competitive matches as they take the step up into the senior game with no competitive league structure in place until u-20 level.
Celtic’s last success in the Glasgow Cup was in 2011 with Paul George, Marcus Fraser and Joe Chalmers all graduating through to the first team since the 1-0 win over Rangers.
Tommy McIntyre heads up the professional level of Celtic’s academy structure and was disappointed by last night’s draw.
“We started the game really well, had a great 15 to 20 minutes then slipped out of the game,” McIntyre admitted. “We played some excellent football, deserved to take the lead but didn’t maintain that.
“Queens Park did well, they are always well organised and kept a good shape, but we should have built on the good start we made.
“Our players need to pick up the tools to handle these situations. When teams sit in you have to make the most of possession but we let that slip last against Queens.
“A lot of our players were involved in the u-20 side against St Johnstone and that’s the next step that they have to be ready to make.”
CELTIC: Jordan Hart: Glen Eadie, Fiacre Kelleger, Mark Barrowman, Calum Waters: Conor McManus, Liam Henderson, Luke Donnelly: Paul McMullan, Ciaran Lafferty, Aiden Nisbet (Connor McLaren)
SCORERS: Lafferty 3, Donnelly 70
CLICK HERE for Rangers Tax Case verdict made
Follow Video Celts on Twitter and Facebook
That picture of hugh the bigot and cheat dalls makes the hair stand up on he back of my neck. He is probably the single mst corrupt ref of all time.