Sky Sports ‘Man of the Match’ Ryan Porteous said that his team mates showed ‘bravery in abundance’ during yesterday’s tremendous 2-0 victory over champions Celtic at Easter Road.
The youngster was outstanding in the heart of the Hibs’ defence and kept Celtic’s chances to a minimum as Neil Lennon’s men comfortably secured their second successive home win over the Hoops.
Celtic, who were the only team in the UK not to have conceded a first half goal went one down in the opening minute after a terrific goal from Vykintas Slivka.
Hibs added a second on the hour mark following a tremendous strike from the impressive Florian Kamberi.
In truth Hibs could have scored more and deservedly secured the valuable three points.
After the game Porteous told Cliff Pike of Hibernian TV: “That performance was something we have been trying to put together for the past eight or nine games.
“When we go two-nil up or sometimes one-nil up we’ve chucked it away like in the Dundee and St Mirren games.
“When we went two-nil up today we wanted to see it through and against a team like Celtic we know they can tear any team apart so we needed to stay compact and defend from the front as well.
“It helps when a lot of people want the ball. You saw for the first goal when Whitts (Steven Whittaker)and Slivka exchanged a couple of passes and got the ball forward.
“We need bravery on the ball and bravery in the tackle especially against a side like Celtic and I thought we showed that in abundance.
“We were kicking the ball to Flo (Florian Kamberi) and it wasn’t coming back. He was holding it up well. Flo always performs well in the so called bigger games and I am happy for him to get his goal because that’s what he wanted.
“They piled on a bit of pressure and you are obviously aware that you are playing against a good team and you need to stay compact then I looked over and I see Efe (Ambrose) and he is swaggering about. That gave me a lot of confidence and Lewis (Stevenson) was different class at the other side of me as well.
“We’ve been a bit depleted in the last eight games. We’ve missed our skipper (David Gray) and Paul (Hanlon) who has been a massive part of what Hibs have achieved in the last five years.”
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
