Leigh leads the line to fire Hoops to touching distance

THE Green Brigade unveiled a banner before t he game inspired by Conor McGregor, the mixed martial arts superstar, but the fighting talk was all done on the park.

And it was Celtic’s own heavyweights who came to the fore on a night in which Brendan Rodgers’ side took a definitive step towards Champions League qualification for the second successive season.

Leigh Griffiths did not need to resort to the theatrics of tying a scarf around a post to declare himself; his performance in this game showed that he has firmly arrived at this level. There was a maturity in his play, an intelligence to the way he set up the third, teed up the fourth and then claimed the fifth.

It was Griffiths who led the line to floor Astana, to leave the Kazakhs without a hope ahead of the second leg next week. The forward deserved a goal in the latter stages and had a big hand in Celtic’s fifth, a strike that came long after this game was finished as a contest.

On a night in which Celtic did more than just flex their muscles, their thoughts would have turned to just who they might be getting in the group stage. It is not j ust the considerable bounty that waits now – one that will surely work in the club’s favour as they head into the final stages of the transfer window – but the prestige that comes with Europe’s main names on the card this autumn.

And while the Hoops will never go head-to-head in the transfer market with any of the big-hitters, they pack a decent punch of their own when they are in the kind of mood they were in last night.

The Scottish champions were inspired, they were clever and they got the rub of the green when they needed it. Rodgers has created a spirit and an energy within the squad that gives them hope regardless of who might come calling when the music cranks up for real.

And if Griffiths deserved to take the plaudits on a night when he worked his socks off, so too did Scott Sinclair.

Sinclair has toiled for the kind of form of last season in the early weeks of the campaign but he floored Astana with a goal either side of the interval. Given the magnitude of this victory, noone will see the Kazakhs

Griffiths deserved to take plaudits on a night where he worked his socks off