After a promising start, Celtic allowed Runcorn to dictate play, and paid the price.

For the opening quarter of an hour, Celtic looked lively and threatening. Charlie Doyle denied by the merest of deflections and Max Leonard denied on the line having beaten Bayleigh Passant to a loose ball near the corner flag and trying an audacious curling shot from an acute angle. Jack Irlam saw his shout for a penalty declined when Eden Gumbs fell in his own box, both hands hitting the ball, which he proceeded to shield from Irlam.

At the quarter hour mark, Celtic had a collective off moment. A back pass from Jack Tinning to Charlie Monks left Monks in a world of trouble. The Celtic keeper did well to reach the ball first, his clearance striking Ryan Brooke, but Naim Arsan got the ball back in for Adam Moseley to head in, only to be ruled offside by being beyond everybody including Monks. Rather than energise Celtic, it energised Linnets. Moseley and Jacques Welsh went close, before Lewis Doyle robbed Tinning and put a ball into the path of Moseley. Kyle Brownhill got back, but Moseley squeezed his shot between defender and keeper to open the scoring.

Liam Tongue did his best to get Celtic back into it, with a thunderous free kick and a distance shot from a half-cleared corner, but Runcorn put bodies in the way. The failure to get on the scoresheet created a problem in first half’s stoppage time, after Lewis Doyle had already hit the woodwork with a rainbow flick over Monks, Moseley grabbed his second off a corner, being the last one in a mad scramble, prodding the ball across the line.

For forty-five minutes in the second half, Runcorn totally dictated play, with Celtic at a loss how to get back into the game. Arsan could have put them further ahead, but his shot hit the crossbar from an angle, until Arsan put in a deep cross; Moseley, completely unmarked at the back post had the freedom of Chester to nod in his hattrick goal. Celtic’s only reply was one long distance effort from Benni Smales-Braithwaite, which Joseph Ferguson’s knee lifted over the bar for a corner. As with every other Celtic corner in the match, it didn’t clear the first man.

The positives from the game. Celtic got to a cup final in Jon Macken’s first season in charge, which bodes well for the future. The negatives were to allow Runcorn to dominate without sufficient response and run out worthy winners.