Falkirk boss John McGlynn on giving Celtic a real scare as he reveals classy Brendan Rodgers moment

Brendan Rodgers’ side required a raft of big-money substitutes to swing the tie in their favour after the Bairns had taken the lead twice at Parkhead – eventually losing out 5-2 after £20 million worth of talent eventually got tired out a knackered Falkirk team.

And 62-year-old McGlynn, who has taken his team to top of the Scottish Championship summit after five straight league wins, pointed to the “back-handed compliment” paid to them by the Celtic boss.

“That was a statement, a back-handed compliment to us,” he said of the hosts’ need to introduce firepower off the bench. “Yeah, fair enough Falkirk, you've done well but here's the big guns coming on, let's see how you can handle that.

“Obviously the other ones that started are not exactly cheap either. And of course, the legs kind of fell off a little bit, little bit of gaps opened up and Nicky (Hogarth) had to make two or three more saves but you had to expect that to some extent.

“But we can take great belief from having come here and played the way we played, and made a statement that Celtic had to make four changes around the hour mark to try and turn the game in their favour, which they did.

“Players individually were playing against really good players here. Can you learn anything individually and then as a team can you learn anything? Because we play in a similar way.”

Having led at the break through two cracking goals by Ross MacIver and Finn Yeats, McGlynn revealed that former colleague Rodgers was moved to come into the visiting dressing room to congratulate the Falkirk players on their performance.

“I was pleased, I mean big plaudits to Brendan, he came in after the game in our dressing room and complemented our players and so a great thank you for him for doing that, that will help our players as well,” he said.

“We'll take the belief that we came here and scored two goals against Celtic, nobody else has done that.”

Over 2,500 Falkirk supporters made the trip through for the final eight tie, and the boss was delighted to give the fans a big day out – with the caveat that his group of players should want to make this sort of fixture a regular one.

The Bairns are a whopping 43-matches unbeaten on league duty and are now the favourites to win automatic promotion to the top-flight after a stunning start to the second tier season.

“From 2:15 to five o'clock they were absolutely amazing,” McGlynn said of the away following.

“That corner, every single one stayed right until all the players went across. And so huge thank you to the fans. They've been great. They've been absolutely great. They enjoyed what they'd seen.

“They'll be a little bit like us, a little bit 'what if', but we did well. They will be like me, no criticism of the players at all.

“It's a matter of ‘yeah, we enjoyed that, we want a bit more of that'. The hunger should be oozing out of us to return here.”

Meanwhile, on star striker Ross MacIver going off injured at the start of the second half, the boss admitted that it was a hamstring issue.

"Hopefully he won’t be out for too long,” McGlynn admitted. “It was tough shift for the players out there. Mentally we coped so well but physically it will have taken its toll.”