And the defender was full of praise for Martin O’Neill and the job he’s done since coming in as interim manager.

“It’s been brilliant,” Scales said. “It’s obviously been a mad couple of weeks and we haven’t had much time to sit and think. Sometimes a transition can be tough but it’s been good.

“Shaun’s obviously taken a big role and he’s been here beforehand so it’s been quite seamless the fact that he’s come straight in and done really well. And the gaffer’s been great as well.

'I think we lacked confidence and Martin’s done a lot to give players confidence and you could see that on Thursday night.'

“We still have a long way to go. There’s room for improvement – we know that – but it’s nice to see that bit of confidence in players that were maybe struggling a little bit, so it’s been a nice change.”

It’s second versus third this Sunday, with Hibernian five points behind the Hoops, having also played two games more.

When the sides met at Celtic Park back in September, it finished goal-less, and the target for this weekend is three points.

“Hibs are a tough side,” Scales. “We played them earlier on in the year and they were really good. It’s always a difficult place to go.

“We’re just trying to recover from the game and get fully focused on going there and winning because we’re on a nice run and we just want to keep that going.

“We know after this game that we’ve got a few home games so it will be nice to get back to Celtic Park.”

Liam Scales: We'll go to Easter Road full of confidence