The point was enough to move us back into fourth in the cinch Premiership and was the least we deserved after a determined and committed performance against the league leaders.
Celtic carved out the best of the goal scoring opportunities however they came up against a rock-solid home defence at the top of its game.
Shaun Maloney made one change from the side that defeated Ross County last weekend as Drey Wright replaced Ewen Henderson, who was unable to play against his parent-club.
We were again without the services of Paul Hanlon, Joe Newell, Paul McGinn and Demetri Mitchell through injury with James Scott and Elias Melkersen joining them on the sidelines due to illness.
That meant that we once again had a very young substitutes bench with Allan Delferriere part of the First Team squad on match day for the first time where he was joined by Jacob Blaney and Oscar MacIntyre.
Easter Road was bathed in sunshine as Lewis Stevenson led the boys out in a clash that was commonly known as the battle of the greens when the clubs were allowed to wear their respective home kits in this fixture.
These days that is no longer the case and the visitors were in all black this afternoon as they got the match underway.
We lined-up in our usual 3-4-2-1 formation and were hunting in packs straight from kick off as Celtic found it difficult to make their usual quick start.
It took 14 minutes before the first effort on goal was registered and it came after wonderful vision from Jota to spot the run of Liel Abada and from his diagonal pass the striker was through on goal. He knocked it beyond Matt Macey who raced from goal and fortunately for us, the effort smashed into the side netting.
A minute later and Jota tried his luck from distance with an angled drive that drifted high and harmlessly over the crossbar.
Wright appeared to be involved in everything in the middle of the park and the attacker was on the end of several robust challenges from the Celtic players.
Likewise, Kevin Nisbet was the recipient of a strong challenge from behind by Carl Starfelt that earned the defender a yellow card and resulted in the striker hobbling off and being replaced by Christian Doidge.
We were playing some nice one-touch football in the middle of the park however, we were unable to find that final killer pass that would see us test Joe Hart in the Celtic goal.
The visitors probably had their quietest opening 45 minutes in front of goal and most of their efforts were from long range as they found our defence frustratingly solid from their perspective.
In the closing moment of the first half Celtic were twice awarded free kicks on the edge of our penalty area. Both times Josip Juranovic drew saves from Macey although neither seriously tested the shot-stopper.
In between those efforts Daizen Maeda got a rare sight of goal when he raced in behind our defence only for Macey to save bravely at his feet.
There were no changes for either side at the break and we were fortunate to escape without conceding in the opening moments as Leo Hatate’s cross was miscued by Ryan Porteous and his sliced clearance flashed just wide of Macey’s far post with the goalkeeper rooted to the spot.
Sylvester Jasper was having a fine game and did well to find pockets of space in between the Celtic defence and midfield.
Around the hour mark he created a shooting opportunity inside the box that appeared to be at the very least going to seriously test Joe Hart, only to strike Doidge who could not get out of the way.
Chris Mueller replaced Wright on 62 minutes with the departing player leaving the field to a rousing reception from the Easter Road faithful.
Chances were few and far between at both ends in the second half with Jota’s freekick on 70 minutes the first real effort on goal and that was a tame effort straight at Macey.
With 13 minutes remaining Celtic did finally create a clear opening as Jota cut back to Abada who appeared certain to score only for Macey to deny him with an incredible point-blank save before doing the same to Maeda from the rebound.
Despite a good performance we had not offered too much in the final third to trouble Celtic however a stunning run from Josh Doig left a trail of Celtic players in his wake and although his eventual shot beat Hart it flashed the wrong side of the post.
Celtic piled on the pressure in the closing stages without testing Macey as our defence stood up to everything thrown at us and we claimed a deserved share of the spoils.
Hibernian: Macey, Doig, Porteous, Wright (Mueller 62’), Nisbet (Doidge 26’), Stevenson (Allan 79’), Jasper, Doyle-Hayes, Cadden, Bushiri. Substitutes not used: Dabrowski, Mitchell, McGregor, Delferriere, Blaney, MacIntyre.
Celtic: Hart, Taylor, Starfelt, Mada, Abada, Jota, Rogic (O’Riley 58’), Carter-Vickers, Hatate, McGregor, Juranovic. Substitutes not used: Bain, Bitton, McCarthy, Ideguchi, Forrest, Ralston, Welsh, Dembele.
Referee: Kevin Clancy.
Attendance: 17,374.
