Celtic put in a spirited second half display to beat St Johnstone 3-2 but it wasn’t enough as they lost out on the Reserve League title on goal difference.
There seems little purpose to a 17 match league programme but up against Brian Easton, Danny Swanson and David Wotherspoon there was plenty to gain for the young Celts especially the physical mismatch of Karamoko Dembele being up against the towering Easton.
To be fair to the Saints defender he never resorted to any overly physical treatment of his 16-year-old opponent who never hid during the second half as Celtic came up with three goals.
The first half performance fell into the lacklustre category with Wotherspoon opening the scoring for the visitors just before the break.
After the break there was renewed purpose and intensity to Celtic’s play with Mikey Johnston savagely brought down 25 yards from goal just before the hour mark. After receiving treatment he drilled in one of his trade mark free kicks.
In the 62nd minute Ewan Henderson showed great determination to race onto a raking pass from Robbie Deas, when his initial shot was blocked he followed up to head the ball into the net.
St Johnstone equalised 10 minutes later but with four minutes left to play substitute Grant Savoury rounded the season off with a win when he shot home from 15 yards out.
CELTIC: Mullen; Coffey, Welsh, Deas, Church; Dembele, Henderson, Robertson; Crossan, Johnston, Oko Flex
SUBS: Willison, Savoury, McBride, Diver, McQueen, Wylie, Moffat
St Johnstone: Ross Sinclair, Aaron Comrie, Brian Easton, Ben Quigley, Niall Keown, Cammy Ballantyne, Euan O’Reilly, Jamie McKenzie, Shaun Struthers, David Wotherspoon, Danny Swanson
