The St Johnstone Scottish Youth Cup dream is over after the Perth team were comfortably beaten by a slick Celtic side.
It was clear from pretty much the first minute of the semi-final that this would be a long night for Saints’ under-18s, most of whom are just 16.
Celtic had a number of highly impressive prospects on show and dominated the match.
Captain Kyle Ure pulled the strings in the middle of the pitch and he set-up Lewis Dobbie for a deflected opener on 26 minutes.
One down at half-time
Getting into the half-time break just one down was a success story given the one-sided nature of the contest but two goals from Daniel Cummings early in the second period ensured there was no prospect of a comeback.
Caleb Goldie and Jude Bonnar scored Celtic’s fourth and fifth goals.
Collectively, the Saints boys will feel they didn’t do themselves justice in front of over 1,000 spectators.
There weren’t any stand-out individual performances from Liam Craig’s team but a number of them grew into the game, local right-back Filipe Franczak among them.
Learning from the experience will, of course, be the focus for these players – and the majority of them will have another shot at this competition next year.
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