O'Neill puts reporters through the hoops

Celtic's two-day jaunt to Dublin finished yesterday with Martin O'Neill's side having to scramble a 1-1 draw with Shamrock Rovers at Tolka Park.It was hardly as a consequence of the result, but O'Neill declined to speak to the press afterwards and was believed to be flying to meet the club's major shareholder, Dermot Desmond, in Limerick to thrash out his long-term future.

On Saturday, after a comfortable 4-1 win over Shelbourne at the same venue, it was a different story.

"It's as if I've never been away," said O'Neill when asked about the rapturous reception he had received from Celtic fans when he emerged at Tolka Park. "Which I haven't," he quickly added, attempting to remind anyone who would listen that he hasn't spent the past fortnight house-hunting in Leeds.

For the sizeable section of Celtic supporters, amongst a disappointing estimated crowd of 4,000, the mere appearance of O'Neill at the game was a mini-triumph over those harbingers of doom who forecast that their manager would be installed by the weekend as David O'Leary's successor at Elland Road.

"You can stick Leeds up your English ***," sang one such supporter, noisily, while the press waited for O'Neill at pitch-side after the game. When he appeared, wearing the expression of a man who would be tempted to turn to violence if he heard the "L" word mentioned again, he attempted to put the issue to bed.

"What I said yesterday I also said on Monday and Tuesday - despite the speculation I'm happy here, happy to continue and happy to see my contract through. I've spoken to Dermot Desmond, the major shareholder at Celtic, about anything that might happen in the future.

"I'm going to sit down (again) with him in the next few weeks . . . to get an overall view of where Celtic are, what they're going to do, their immediate future and more long-term matters, all those type of things. Everything will be discussed at that time. So that is the end of the matter, as far as I'm concerned.

"I'm hoping that we might try and get some (new) players in. The players here for the last few seasons have done fantastically well, but we just need a wee bit of help. That's not filibustering, alright? That's it, I'm very, very pleased to be here."

Can we just ask you, on the Leeds front . . . "I've just said the whole thing, I've told you the whole thing - that, to me, today, is the end of the issue," he said. And with that he was gone.

Interpretation? No to Leeds, probably - but no, too, to an extension to his contract at Celtic, which is due to expire next summer, unless the club gives him a few bob to spend on new players?

Maybe, although the Yorkshire Evening Post, which, one would imagine, should have its finger on the Elland Road pulse, is having none of it.

"Privately, the Irishman is believed to be desperate to take over the Elland Road hot-seat and United chairman Peter Ridsdale is determined to get his man," they reported on Saturday, after O'Neill had vowed he would see out his contract at Celtic.

Predictably, off-the-field events overshadowed the game between the Irish and Scottish champions, in which Celtic triumphed 4-1 with two goals from John Hartson and one apiece from Didier Agathe and substitute Chris Sutton.

The goal of the game, though, came from Shelbourne's Stephen Geoghegan who, after collecting a smart reverse pass from Wes Houlihan, turned Jackie McNamara in the box and slotted the ball over Robert Douglas.

Geoghegan's goal had levelled the scores after an unmarked Hartson had given Celtic a seventh-minute lead, heading home Liam Miller's cross from the left. But by half-time Celtic were 3-1 up, through Hartson again and Agathe.

Irish international Colin Healy was one of eight half-time substitutions for Celtic, with Miller, his former Ballincollig team-mate, replaced after 70 minutes by Michael Doyle, the Cherry Orchard old-boy who spent much of last season on loan at Danish club Aarhus with Miller.

It was Healy who set up the final score of the game, crossing from the right for Sutton to head home on 53 minutes, with goalkeeper Chris Bennion, a half-time replacement for Steve Williams, making a fine double-save from Sutton and another from Lynch to deny Celtic a bigger winning margin.

Having arrived back in Dublin only in the early hours of Saturday morning, after opening the defence of their league title with a 3-0 defeat by Cork City at Turner's Cross on Friday evening, Shelbourne looked leg-weary by the second half, not least because eight of the players who started against Cork were in the starting line-up for the Celtic game.

They, one assumes, greeted the final whistle with much the same relief as Celtic supporters will greet the appointment of Steve McClaren as the Leeds manager.

Yesterday, Rovers stunned the Scottish champions by taking the lead through a Mark Kenny free-kick shortly after half-time. But Celtic fought back to ensure they would not be the losing side when Steve Guppy's 83rd-minute shot deflected off Bobo Balde into the back of the net.