While Anthony Stokes was extending Celtic’s winning run with the only goal of the game at Motherwell the influence of the Celtic Family was obvious across the whole of Scottish football.
The final whistle had barely blown at Fir Park before Michael O’Halloran was scoring the only goal of the game for St Johnstone away to St Mirren.
It was the fifth goal in as many games for the 24-year-old who was played alongside James Forrest in the Celtic academy before moving south to Bolton Wanderers, his dad Michael helps coach the Celtic u-17 side.
O’Halloran’s goal piled the pressure on former Celtic assistant manager Tommy Craig who has the task of lifting his players ahead of next week’s visit to the champions.
Eighty miles north at Dens Park Ryan Christie came up with a late winner as John Hughes’ side enjoyed a 2-1 win over Paul Hartley’s Dundee.
Ryan’s dad Charlie was a Celtic reserve from 1987 to 1989 but his fondness for Inverness as well as the presence of Andy Walker, Frank McAvennie, Mark McGhee and Joe Miller prevented him from making the breakthrough despite a mountain of goals for the reserve side.
At Pittodrie Niall McGinn scored with a brilliant chip in Aberdeen’s 3-0 win over Hamilton Accies that met with the approval of Derek McInnes.
After the match the Aberdeen boss said: “It was a top finish, it would grace any league. He’s been a wee bit down that he’s not scored as many goals. His general play has been absolutely fine and he’s a big, big player for us.”
There wasn’t much Celtic connections in Partick Thistle’s 1-1 draw with Kilmarnock but on Friday night Jackie McNamara was pleased to see Dundee United see out a 3-2 win away to Ross County which didn’t go down so well with Lewis Toshney or Jackson Irvine.
Down in the second tier of the game James Keatings opened the scoring for Hearts as they beat Queen of the South 4-1 while Robbie Thomson and Marcus Fraser were denied a point when a deflected Dean Shiels shot defeated Cowdenbeath at Ibrox.
