Keane’s 19-minute hat-trick took the Parkhead club into the semi-finals of the Active Nation Scottish Cup, moved his personal tally on to eight goals in eight appearances, and relieved some of the pressure which had been building this week on his manager Tony Mowbray.
The contrast to Keane’s last visit to Rugby Park, when Kilmarnock beat Celtic 1-0 on his debut the day after his loan move from Tottenham, could hardly have been greater.
That Celtic would go on to win the game with such comfort and that Keane would be the headline act was far from clear after 45 minutes. Just as they had done against Rangers in the league on Tuesday, the hosts arguably edged the opening half. Allan Russell had hit the bar and with James Fowler excelling in a man-marking role, Keane was hardly getting a kick.
With a 13-point deficit on Rangers to make up in the league, and the cup looking like Mowbray’s only real hope of delivering silverware, his detractors scented blood.
The Englishman didn’t spare his players in the dressing room at the interval, and he got his response over a spell which commenced just after the hour mark.
For those who harp on about Mowbray’s substitutions, it is worth mentioning that his adventurous deployment of Marc-Antoine Fortune and Georgios Samaras early in the second half gave this game a different complexion.
But it was Keane who hogged the glory, even if others did the legwork. His first came goal when he latched on to a pinpoint Edson Braafheid pass, eliminated Scott Severin and Kilmarnock goalkeeper Cameron Bell with his touch, and tapped into the empty net.
Keane’s second was even easier as he rolled the ball over the line from all of a yard out after a Samaras pass and Fortune cross had laid it on a plate. The third was a bit special, with the most assured of first-time, right-foot finishes leaving Bell without a prayer, after Fortune broke from deep.
“If you break the game down at half-time you wouldn’t have said Keane was man of the match, but he did what he did in the second half,” Mowbray said. “There was some great work from Braafheid for the first, Samaras for the second and Fortune for the third.
“It is a team game and he is here to finish them off. As long as he continues to work hard for the team and contribute with his goals he won’t get any complaints here. With the third goal the quality of the strike was of a very, very high level.”
Perhaps the more effusive praise came from Jimmy Calderwood, who called his tormentor a smiling assassin. “The lad is wonderful,” the Kilmarnock manager said. “He just plays with a smile on his face. I was down at Tottenham this season and you saw how much pleasure he gets just from playing football. He is probably a very rich lad, but he is still like a wee boy living the dream.”
Calderwood, who has been known to make a change or two, made three alterations from the side which lost to Rangers in midweek.
The excellent Craig Bryson, Liam Kelly and former Celtic striker Mark Burchill came in at the expense of Manuel Pascali, Iain Flannigan and Chris Maguire, the scorer of the goal which settled the last meeting between these teams.
With his suspension confined to league matches, Scott Brown captained the Parkhead side and his enthusiasm set the tone for a first half which contained no shortage of lusty challenges.
Morten Rasmussen, in particular, was in the wars, on the receiving end of a possibly inadvertant elbow from Severin and a stamp from Tim Clancy, and spending much of his hour on the field involved in a simmering feud with Frazer Wright.
Brown fired a shot wide after a driving run and Braafheid had a free-kick saved before Keane dodged an offside flag to force a save from Bell. But Kilmarnock were in this game too, the dangerous Russell striking the bar after Bryson had robbed Landry N’Guemo.
Russell nudged an effort off a post from close range at the start of the second half, but Celtic transformed the game.
A Keane cross led to an Aiden McGeady volley which was headed off the line by Wright, then a goalbound finish from the same player was tipped away from his top corner by Bell. Then Mowbray went for broke with his double switch and, thanks to Keane, his boldness was rewarded in triplicate.
