Scott McDonald fired the goal that gave his former side a European place and then asked his old Motherwell club mates to do Celtic a favour in the league by beating Rangers on Saturday.

The Australian forward, who headed the second goal in Celtic's 2-0 victory over Hibernian at Celtic Park, said: "I had a few text messages before the game from my old Motherwell mates asking me to do them a favour, so that is them home and dry. Congratulations to them. I am delighted for them. Hopefully, they can go and do us a favour."

McDonald was the subject of his manager's anger when he shot instead of playing in either Mark Wilson or Shunsuke Nakamura for what would have been a certain goal in the early moments of the match with Celtic leading by just one goal. Gordon Strachan, who launched his water bottle on to the pitch in frustration at the incident, was asked after the match if he feared the miss could have come back to haunt Celtic. "For Scott, I am glad it did not," said the Celtic manager.

McDonald said: "Every good striker has that selfish streak in him, but I got myself out of a hole today. I definitely should have cut it back to Mark Wilson when I went round the keeper. At, 1-0 you are thinking I hope that doesn't come back to hurt us and thankfully it didn't and I managed to redeem myself."

He said Celtic were enjoying the chase for the title. "We are getting used to the pressure," he said. "The two Rangers games were the big pressure games because we knew we had to take six points off them even to end up chasing them. We have done that. We knew the job wasn't finished but we have got a lot of pride back."

He added of yesterday's game: "I am quite happy with the performance, though obviously at 1-0 the game is never over and you can hear the tension in the ground. I thought we played particularly well.

In a lot of spells we dominated the game, particularly in the second half."

The championship is delicately balanced and McDonald said: "In hindsight, we can kick ourselves for that home result against Motherwell. But, hopefully, it will not come down to that."

He added of the Dundee United match which takes place on May 22: "We will be more than ready."

McDonald's manager said the game was a great spectacle under the sun. "That was a good game." he said. "It was a fitting finish to the season here. It was end to end, like basketball at one point."

But Strachan said of the performance: "Trust me, it is all about the result, I have heard some gumph since I have come here about stylish football but everyone wants to watch winning football. We will try to perform, as you have seen today, but, trust me, if we had performed like that and got beat there would have been all hell to pay."

He was dismissive of the pressure of the dramatic end of the season. "I think I will stay off the drink and the marriage will stay solid," he said. "I have managed to get through relegation battles so this should not bother me one little bit."

He was also downbeat about the performance of Artur Boruc who made four good saves. "He wasn't bad," said the Celtic manager, "but I don't think there was anything there that you would not expect him to save. He was competent in the stuff he had to deal with."

He wished Rangers "all the best" for the UEFA Cup final in Manchester against Zenit St Petersburg on Wednesday.

Hibs' European adventure will now be confined to the InterToto Cup. Their manager, Mixu Paatelainen, revealed he was about to take Martin Canning off just before the referee red-carded the defender. He criticised Ian Murray for "taking a swing" at Aiden McGeady for his sending off. "He could have quietly stopped the play," he said of the defender.