Fans lap it up as strikers finally score

Celtic 4
(Samaras 5, 65; McGeady 20; V of Hesselink 83)

Hamilton 0

THE afternoon began with Celtic supporters clearly intoxicated with the fumes caused by the stink across the city. Come the end of it, they were getting off on the football from their team, the high of a six-point Premier League lead it established and the buzz of goals from strikers who aren't supposed to score any more.

It has been a foul week for the Rangers faithful, and they will travel to Falkirk today full of trepidation. Until the club and Scotland career-ending misdemeanours of Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor, disciplinary problems seemed more troubling for their east end rivals. As that notion lost its relevance in recent days, at least the Ibrox faithful could still delight in the inability of Celtic forwards to find the net. But now even that has ceased to be relevant with a double from Georgios Samaras gifting the Greek his first goals for the club since January 3.

Yet, the largest cheer came an age after the contest had ceased to be one. Sent on in the 72nd minute, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink bundled in a Andreas Hinkel cross with seven minutes remaining and was acclaimed by both home players and fans as if it were a championship decider. Relief is a powerful emotion and the smothering of the Dutchman by what seemed every team-mate had everything to do with the effort being his first goal since he netted a double against Aberdeen in September (the only others he has scored this season). Combined, Samaras and Vennegoor of Hesselink hadn't scored in more than 2,000 minutes, and the end of that drought was surely enough to drive an already demented Rangers support to drink in the fashion of their captain.

Gordon Strachan, meanwhile, was prepared to metaphorically raise a glass or two to his team. "That was a first class performance and they showed great professionalism," said the Celtic manager, venturing the display eclipsed the recent 7-0 win over St Mirren. "We've had players dotted all over the world this week and Scott McDonald only came back yesterday." It was the return to scoring form of the Australian's frontline peers that provided the most good-natured exchange of Strachan's post-match talk. Asked if the Celtic supporters would be happy to see Samaras and Vennegoor of Hesselink back among the goals, he quipped: "I think they would be happy just to see a striker score."

Strachan's side were entitled to be relatively at ease with themselves owing to their top of the table position. The confidence they exuded strongly hinted that they believe their prospects for a fourth title had been enhanced merely because their closest challengers had been weakened by the finger-twitching stupidity of the captain and goalkeeper. And if any team know all about how keeper craziness can mess with a club's morale then it is Celtic.

Artur Boruc must have spent the last couple of days thanking his maker for the mistakes made by Ferguson and McGregor. Were it not for their column-centimetre-consuming activities, the recent travails of the Pole would have been back-page dominating fodder. Sent packing by his international coach Leo Beenhaaker for sneaking his girlfriend into his hotel room days before he swiped at fresh air to condemn his team to defeat away to Northern Ireland, Boruc might reflect on his good fortune in having Strachan and not Walter Smith as his manager. For while McGregor has been binned from sticking up two fingers, Boruc has retained his position despite landing two haymakers on Aiden McGeady.

Maybe the simple act of converting a penalty for his country in midweek helped Samaras lay a fatal blow on Hamilton within five minutes, meanwhile. Released by Hinkel, the forward easily evading a couple of Hamilton challenges before flicking the ball past Sean Murdoch.

Although, Billy Reid's men defended stoutly, Celtic were clearly in the mood. Evidence of that came in the form of a glorious defence-splitting pass from Shunsuke Nakamura, picking out McGeady on the left flank with a ball that allowed the winger to dart forward and chip in from the edge of the area after 21 minutes.

The visitors then had a brief spell during which the lively Joel Thomas almost forced his way through the Celtic backline. Boruc was forced to produce a gasp-drawing fingertip stop and they had an effort clatter the goalframe. "We don't get judged on the results against Celtic away," Reid said. "We've been here before and lost (heavily] and bounced back and I don't think it will have a knock-on effect. I had a very young team out today because I wanted to give some of the lads experience of playing at a venue like this."

The misfortune for Reid was that he encountered Celtic on a day when their play had rhythm and their touch was in. That was certainly true of Samaras and, when put through on goal by a sublime crossfield pass from Marc Crosas, the lanky frontman classily shimmied his way inside from the left before tucking an angled drive in at the far corner. Vennegoor of Hesselink's goal then set the seal on what is only Celtic's fifth win in their past 11 matches. Yet, for all their toils in recent months, should they defeat Falkirk in midweek, they will have precisely the same number of points as they did at the corresponding stage of last season. And we all know how that ended.