Celtic regained ground, and started creating chances of their own. With Brodie orchestrating the midfield, he put a slid pass into the path of Morris who dummied his marker and slid the ball to Black on the overlap, the low cross was excellent, but Ellington's back flip was denied by an equally excellent full stretch save from Sollitt. Ellington then won a corner out of Caudwell. The corner came across to Steve Smith whose blasted shot was parried by the keeper and there was no Celtic player near enough to take advantage of the loose ball.
Celtic looked increasingly threatening, and the goal came when Winn found Brodie. Brodie turned his man neatly and threaded a diagonal ball into the box for Ellington. The ex-Gainsborough striker nipped in and fired low across Sollitt to record his first ever goal against his former club. Trinity could have had an instant replay when Jamie Smith got behind the defence, but Keeling and Pettinger did enough to force him to shoot wide. Graves found some space just before half time to strike a sweet shot, but Pettinger had plenty of time to see it, and saved comfortably.
The last chance of the half could have culminated a great first half performance from Brodie when Black slid a low cross into the near post, Brodie slid the furthest beating Pell, but his shot was just wide.
At the start of the second half, Gainsborough's shoot on sight policy was clear, and Keeling had to concede a corner to deny Bird. The corner was well dealt with deflecting it away from goal, but it was immediately put back in, only for Pettinger to punch away, and the next shot was wild. Purkiss tried a distance shot, it was dipping, but over.
Somewhat against the run of play, Steve Smith was put through by Winn, it took a good parry from Sollitt to deny Smith, the ball coming back to him, with no shot on, Smith lobbed to the back post, but there was nobody there to capitalise. Anson was the next Trinity player to find some space, and he forced Pettinger into a full stretch tip over with his shot from the edge of the box.
The pressure from the hosts eventually told. Substitute Wood broke up the field after a loose ball from Keeling, and Black through himself across the box to block, the ball striking his trailing arm. Letter of the law, penalty, though it was a tad harsh. Bird stepped up and cleverly disguised the direction, sending Pettinger completely the wrong way. Trinity went close twice in quick succession to taking the lead, but poor shooting let them down.
Ellington could have broken the hearts of those who?d called him a hero when Parr set him free to go one-on-one with Sollitt, but Sollitt won that contest with an excellent low block. Hume was brought on, and immediately had an impact, knocking the ball on to Ellington. Ellington found some space for the shot, and Sollitt had to hold onto the ball as Hume was right there to tap in any rebound.
A long distance free kick forced Pettinger to be on his toes as Bird went for goal instead of passing.
Celtic were regaining the upper hand as the game went into the final period. Brodie winning a corner that Winn headed goalward, only for Sollitt to make a solid catch. Ellington won a corner out of Caudwell, and the ball came to Sykes who took a fearsome shot that had goal written all over it until Caudwell made amends with an outstretched leg to clear off the line and force the game into a replay on Tuesday night.
