The Hampden scriptwriter is clearly off their meds

If you were expecting a calm, tactical Saturday afternoon at the office, you clearly haven't been paying attention to the absolute madness infecting Scottish football this year. Celtic 6-2 St Mirren after extra time? That is not a football result; that is a glitch in the simulation. As The Daily Mail noted, anyone tasked with writing a follow-up to this season is going to quit their job by Tuesday.

We were locked in a 2-2 stalemate after the opening ninety minutes, a scoreline that felt like a perfectly respectable way to end a semi-final between two sides who have seen it all before. But then reality went out the window. Celtic flicked a switch that shouldn't legally be available to a professional squad, putting four past a St Mirren side that looked like they were running through wet concrete while the Bhoys were moving in fast-forward.

The O'Neill vs. Lennon Showdown

Let’s talk about the main event. Martin O'Neill against Neil Lennon? You couldn't manufacture this level of narrative gold if you spent six months in a Hollywood writers' room. It is the master against his former disciple, the kind of sub-plot that makes the Scottish Cup final against Dunfermline feel like a heavyweight title fight before the teams even take the field.

The path here was hardly seamless. That early horror show from Saints' stand-in keeper Ryan Mullen, gifting Daizen Maeda a goal, set the tone for a game that lived on chaos. It was ugly, it was frenetic, and it was the best thing I've watched all year. According to The Guardian, the result sets up a showpiece event that actually lives up to the hype—a rare feat in a sport frequently bogged down by self-importance.

Tactical incompetence or pure adrenaline?

We need to address the defensive disaster class on both sides. While Celtic’s extra-time blitz was clinically impressive, you don't stick six past a semi-final opponent if they are actually bothering to defend properly. St Mirren’s collapse in that final half-hour was almost impressive in its totality. It wasn't just a loss of structure; it was a total intellectual surrender.

Celtic took advantage, but they looked vulnerable for long stretches before the floodgates opened. Relying on an extra-time explosion to carry you through to a major final is fine when it works, but against better opposition, that leaky backline is going to get chewed up and spit out. The energy required to turn a draw into a 6-2 blowout is massive, and you have to wonder what’s left in the tank for the final stretch of the season.

Why this matters for the neutrals

We are currently sitting on April 19, 2026, and the stakes for the rest of the campaign just spiked through the roof. With the Sportsound podcast already dissecting the wreckage and the tactical failures of this match, the build-up to the final against Dunfermline is going to be suffocating. If Celtic plays with this same manic, heart-attack-inducing intensity, the neutral viewer is in for quite a ride.

Is it sustainable? Probably not. Is it thrilling? Absolutely. This tournament has been defined by moments of pure, unadulterated nonsense where logic goes to die. I’ll take a 6-2 shootout over a dreary, tactical 1-0 stalemate every single day of the week, even if the defending involved would make a Sunday league manager blush.

We are witnessing a truly bizarre chapter in Scottish football history. The fact that the final is actually going to be interesting is just the cherry on top of a very chaotic, very delicious sundae. Don't look for traditional excellence here; look for the absolute carnage that happens when two teams decide that defending is beneath them.