Rogic’s Celtic nab historic trebles

CELTIC have cruised to a record-breaking second successive domestic treble after beating Motherwell 2-0 to win the Scottish Cup final.

First-half goals from Callum McGregor and Olivier Ntcham were enough to earn the runaway Premiership champions a third trophy of the season and repeat last year’s treble, a feat unprecedented in the Scottish game.

Socceroos midfielder Tom Rogic, who signed a new fiveyear deal with the Hoops earlier in the week, fired wide of the target from 20m out after just six minutes and also had a tamer effort saved later in the opening term. The former ALeague man scored a famous injury-time winner against Aberdeen in last year’s final.

Motherwell hit the woodwork in the second half as they staged a spirited rally, but as in the League Cup final in November, Celtic triumphed against the same side by the same score.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has steered the Glasgow side to his sixth domestic trophy in two seasons in charge.

Rodgers insists he will expect more of them now as he guards against the complacency that might scuttle their next mission: making it three trebles in a row.

“I certainly need to push them even harder next season,” he said. “I think we can be better. We need to get better again. We dropped too many points this year.

“When you have the success we had last year, it would have been so easy to have gone soft, gone timid, not had the same aggression.

“For teams like us, it’s not the punches to the head and body that stop you, it’s the pats on the back. We can never be satisfied. We have to be hungry.”