Red-hot Daizen Maeda hit a hat-trick to move to 21 goals for the season as Celtic swept Raith Rovers aside with minimal fuss to move into the quarter finals of the Scottish Cup, with his overall Celtic tally now hitting the half century mark.

It was almost the perfect evening for the cup holders and Brendan Rodgers, as the manager rested a slew of his first-choice regulars, and a team largely made up of his supporting cast put on a show for the fans in any case.

Maeda opened the scoring early on and added a second just before the interval, before Luke McCowan struck just after the restart and Yang Hyun-jun added a fourth.

Maeda then took the rapturous acclaim of the home crowd by tapping home a fifth at the back stick to round off a comfortable afternoon’s work for his team.

Here are the talking points from Celtic Park…

Maeda in the middle to bring up the half century

Wherever Maeda plays, everything he touches at the minute seems to turn to goals. He is hardly a stranger to the striking role he filled here, mind you, and he slipped into the position he performs for his country like a duck taking to water.

It took the Japanese attacker just six minutes to break the deadlock, being teed up by Paulo Bernardo in acres of space just inside the Rovers area, dead centre of goal. It was slack from the visiting defence, who had no doubt been encouraged by manager Barry Robson to keep it tight early on, and with the form he is in, Maeda was never going to miss from there.

He had another disallowed for offside just before the interval, but there was still time for him to get a second in stoppage time, finishing off a lightning break after some nice set-up play by Yang. More on the South Korean shortly.

It seemed inevitable that he would get his hat-trick, and it duly arrived, allowing the home fans to show Maeda exactly what they think of him, his boundless energy, and his burgeoning contribution to their team.

Yang shows a glimpse of what he’s got

To say that the winger has yet to win over a sizeable chunk of the Celtic support would be rather understating it, and an impressive performance here against Championship opposition is hardly likely to fully change many minds. But it’s a start. And he was impressive.

His pace allowed him to set up Maeda for Celtic’s second goal on the night, and he got another assist as his centre was bundled home by McCowan for his side’s third on the night.

Rodgers clearly sees something in the 22-year-old, and recently praised his dedication to improve and become the best player he can possibly be.

He may still have some work to do to get to a level where he is considered good enough to become a regular starter in this Celtic team, but as he showed here, he does have ability. He now just has to show it on a more consistent basis, and at a higher level.

Celtic flying into Bayern test

With the behemoths of Bayern Munich looming, Celtic manager Rodgers shuffled his pack here, with only Callum McGregor and Maeda retaining their places from the team that thumped Dundee in midweek.

He took Adam Idah – the only available senior striker he has available for the visit of the Germans on Wednesday night – out of the firing line, bringing Yang onto the left of the attack and shunting Maeda through the middle with Nicolas Kuhn patrolling the right flank.

At the back, he could rest first choice pairing Cameron Carter-Vickers and Auston Trusty, with Dane Murray coming into the line-up (and looking assured as he carried the ball out from the back), while Jeffrey Schlupp looked decent on his first start for the club. We even seen the lesser spotted Maik Nawrocki, for heaven’s sake.

The only potential fly in the ointment was a first half injury to Bernardo, who had to be replaced by Hatate, but Celtic are hardly short of options in that midfield area with McGregor, Arne Engels and McCowan also available.

So, with an almost clean bill of health throughout the squad, and having now hit 14 goals over the past week in just three matches, Celtic could hardly be going into the mammoth task that lies in wait next week in any finer fettle.

Well, perhaps if they had signed a striker…

Raith can’t be rocked by drubbing

Over 2000 Rovers fans made the journey down to Glasgow, and while they didn’t have much to get excited about in terms of what happened on the pitch, they would have enjoyed their day no doubt.

Manager Robson though wouldn’t have come to his old stomping ground to be patronised or to play the part of tourists. Or, indeed, cannon fodder. He may have expected more from his team, then, even when taking into account the difficulty that sides with far greater resources have had in dealing with this Celtic side this season.

For one, while they were largely well organised in the first half especially, the opening goal was a soft one, and was avoidable. And the game was almost over there and then.

It became a damage limitation exercise, and while they couldn’t be faulted for effort, they were never likely to be able to keep the score down.

With Robson just getting his feet under the table at Stark’s Park, climbing up the Championship table and even perhaps edging closer to those playoff positions is clearly the more pressing concern for Rovers, and there does appear to be the bones of a decent side there for him to work with despite this predictable doing.

Viljami Sinisalo barely gets gloves dirty on debut

Kasper Schmeichel wasn’t risked here ahead of Wednesday night, with the Dane nursing a minor back complaint, so Sinisalo was handed a competitive debut for Celtic.

The Finn was rather underworked, shall we say, making it difficult to pass any sort of judgement on his capabilities, but the little he was asked to do he did competently enough.

There was one attempted lob from Josh Mullin in the first half that he helped around the post, and he punched a couple of in-swinging Lewis Stevenson corners clear in not entirely convincing fashion. But his footwork was good, and his distribution decent too.