Aussie McDonald happy on Celtic goal trail

Australian striker Scott McDonald scored twice as Celtic beat Hibernian 3-1 to go four points clear in the Scottish Premier League and admitted he was overjoyed to be back amongst the goals.

He took his season’s tally to 11 in all competitions as Gordon Strachan’s side took advantage of seeing bitter rivals Rangers earlier held to a 0-0 draw at Aberdeen.

“I was glad to get among the goals again and hopefully there is more to come,” said McDonald who found the net after just three minutes with his second coming in the 75th minute.

“We knew that Rangers had dropped points but the last couple of times they had dropped points, we had done the same,” added the Australian referring to Celtic’s whirlwind start when they were 2-0 ahead in the eighth minute.

“It was important to come out of the blocks quickly. But it didn’t matter if Rangers had won, lost or drawn; we would have wanted to go out there the same way we did.

“It was a great start for us and we could have had a few more.” Meanwhile, Strachan admitted he is concerned by his side’s defensive frailties when facing set pieces.

In their shock 4-2 defeat at Aberdeen last week, all the goals came from dead-ball situations and against Hibs, Celtic were once again found wanting from a set-piece delivery when Rob Jones headed in a 17th-minute free-kick from Derek Riordan.

“It doesn’t make me happy,” said Strachan. “We thought we did a fair amount of work on it and talked about it but we have to come up with answers.

“In saying that, sometimes there are some fantastic deliveries; Charlie (Mulgrew’s) deliveries last week and Derek Riordan’s in this game were excellent. But we have to come up with something to deal with excellent deliveries.”