cinch PREMIERSHIP
18th May 2024
Celtic Park, Glasgow
Celtic 3-2 St. Mirren
O’HARA 7 
O’Reilly 21
O’HARA 26 (pen) Kyogo 37 Palma 86
ATT: 60,411 (700 Saints fans)
Referee: M McDermid
VAR:
- The season ends with a narrow defeat at Parkhead as the home side celebrate winning the league, however Saints are denied the ultimate chance to spoil the title party when the referee, linseman and VAR somehow miss a blatant 83rd minute pull on Mikael Mandron’s shirt at a corner, which would have offered Mark O’Hara the chance to score Saints first ever hat-trick at Parkhead and win the match.
- A few minutes after this, Celtic score the winner, an extremely harsh result on Saints who had led twice and looked dangerous throughout, particularity through Toyosi Olusanya who gave the Celtic defence a torrid time during his time on the park.
- After causing confusion at an early long throw by Baccus, Olusanya fought for the loose ball which was eventually hammered home by Mark O’Hara on the volley to give Saints the lead after only 7 minutes.
- However, the lead only lasted 13 minutes when some poor defending allowed Matt O’Reilly to fire in an equaliser under Hemming.
- No more than 5 minutes later, Olusanya broke through only to be shoved to the ground by Steven Welsh whilst in the act of shooting. Incredibly the referee failed to send off the Celtic player and in fact didn’t even book him. O’Hara easily dispatched the penalty to restore Saints lead.
- O’Hara then hits the post with a back post header which should have completed a hat-trick within half an hour, and Celtic capitalise again on slack defending by notching an equaliser soon after.
- The second half is a more cagey affair, but Saints still look the more dangerous side, however couldn’t legislate for refereeing failures, and the decision to add no time on at the end as Saints chased an equaliser, despite 10 substitutions, 2 injuries and 3 VAR checks is perhaps a fitting end to a season where Saints had suffered more than any club for referee mistakes, as per the SFA’s own review system.
- Despite this, the team had their most successful on the park for almost 40 years, and the supporters got to say an emotional farewell to Ryan Strain, Keanu Baccus, Ryan Flynn, Charles Dunne, Jaden Brown and possibly Zach Hemming who were playing their last matches for St. Mirren.
| NO. | PLAYER | RATING |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zach Hemming | 6 |
| 22 | Marcus Fraser | 7 |
| 3 | Scott Tanser | 7 |
| 5 | Richard Taylor  66 | 7 |
| 13 | Alex Gogic | 7 |
| 21 | Elvis Bwomono 66 | 7 |
| 6 | Mark O’Hara | 9 |
| 17 | Keanu Baccus | 8 |
| 15 | Caolan Boyd-Munce 80 | 8 |
| 10 | Conor McMenamin 80 | 7 |
| 20 | Toyosi Olusanya 75 | 9 |
| SUBS | ||
| 14 | James Scott | |
| 9 | Mikael Mandron  75 | 7 |
| 2 | James Bolton | |
| 18 | Charles Dunne 66 | 6 |
| 21 | Jaden Brown | |
| 27 | Peter Urminsky | |
| 24 | Lewis Jamieson 80 | 6 |
| 33 | Ryan Flynn 80 | 6 |
| 23 | Ryan Strain 66 | 6 |