Witton Albion found themselves completely overwhelmed by a rampant Celtic in the first half, and unable to break down a solid defence in the second, despite throwing caution to the wind as time ran out.

As dream starts go, Brad Byrne gave one to Celtic. Moments after firing over, he brought down a superb cross field ball to burst into the box with his first touch. His second provided Aaron Dwyer the perfect ball to curl with power and precision from an acute angle into the back of the net. As though trying to top the preceding goal, Brandon Newell slotted an inch-perfect pass through the Albion defence. Matty Bryan’s speed left him one-on-one with Harry Wright to give Celtic a two goal lead with ten minutes gone.

Albion had a momentary good spell around the quarter hour mark. Oli Roberts fired over and Tom Pope found Luke Hewitson awake, but barely tested the Celtic keeper. A different story at the other end as Bryan again broke the offside trap. This time, his square ball gave Dwyer a chance he couldn’t miss, tapping in from a yard out. Celtic saved the best goal until last. Byrne over the top to Bryana, who connected perfectly, turning his volley into a looping effort over the outstretched fingertips of Wright.

Witton is a strong team, and it was always going to be a test for the defence at the start of the second half. So it proved, with Connor O’Grady and Jai Curran-Nichols unsung heroes, limiting Witton to scraps of chances. Whilst at the other end, when chances presented, Celtic looked like adding to the four. O’Grady got his head on a corner, but couldn’t get power. It required a reaction tip over the bar when Jordan Burton tried a cheeky curling ball from another corner. When Kingsley saw red for a second yellow, Celtic’s four goal lead became unassailable. Jack Irlam almost added to the scoreline; Obua Mugalula scraped the paint off the post as he went one-on-one with the keeper; Newell went over the bar from thirty yards. Keeping a clean sheet, Hewitson pulled off a stunning save to deny Witton any kind of consolation when Joe Duckworth finally got a clear cut chance for Albion. At the other end, Wright denied Irlam a debut goal with a wonder save of his own, a close range block to deny an almost certain goal.

Quite possibly the best first half of football seen at Bower Fold in several seasons and Witton had no answer to it.