We opened our pre-season campaign this afternoon with a 5-0 friendly win against Edinburgh City at Meadowbank Stadium.
The match, David Gray’s first as permanent Head Coach, ended in a comfortable victory for the boys with Chris Cadden, Dylan Levitt, Harry McKirdy, Reuben McAllister and Josh Campbell all on target.
New signing Josef Bursik started in goals, the back four consisted of Oscar MacIntyre, Riley Harbottle, Nohan Kenneh and Kanayo Megwa, Joe Newell took the armband and lined-up in midfield alongside Cadden, Levitt and Luke Amos, whilst McKirdy and Dylan Vente were in attack.
The first goal of the new Gray-era arrived after just 15 minutes when two City defenders got in each other’s way trying to deal with a chipped ball into their box, Cadden stole in to prod the ball past Weir and score.
It was 2-0 seven minutes later when Cadden split the City defence to find Dylan Vente on the left of the box, he squared it to Levitt and the Welshman finished clinically from eight yards.
Goal number three wasn’t too far behind it as City again failed to clear their lines and McKirdy pounced, striking a spectacular first-time effort from 30 yards over the head of Weir and into the net for his first goal for the Club.
It took a fine save from Weir to deny McKirdy a first half double on the cusp of half-time as we took a commanding three-goal lead into the interval.
During the break we changed our entire XI as new boss Gray looked to utilise his full squad and give game time to as many players as possible.
For the second period Max Boruc took over between the posts, Rory Whittaker, Lewis Miller, Joseph McGrath and Jordan Obita made up the back line, Jake Doyle-Hayes, McAllister, Campbell and Jair Tavares were in midfield, with Rudi Molotnikov and Josh Landers the front two.
The second half was only three minutes old when Campbell slipped McAllister through and he added a fourth goal with a composed finish.
We had the ball in City’s net again on 61 minutes when Landers finished from Jair’s low cross only for the offside flag to thwart us.
A fifth goal was only delayed two minutes as second half skipper Campbell swept home with a left-footed half volley from the end of the area following Landers knock down.
That would be the end of the goal scoring however the remainder of the match continued to be one-way traffic as we created chance-after-chance.
Obita and McGrath both struck the woodwork for us whilst Whittaker and Molotnikov were each denied by good stops from the goalkeeper.
Hosts City failed to register a single shot on target during the 90 minutes such was the dominance from us.
Edinburgh City: Weir, Gormley, Mitchell, Robertson, McArthur, Lynch, Stokes, Scally, Jarvis, Young. Substitutes: Berveridge, McKinstray, Pitt, Trialist, Trialist, Trialist.
Hibernian FC First Half: Bursik, Levitt, Vente, Newell, Cadden, Amos, McKirdy, Kenneh, Harbottle, Megwa, MacIntyre.
Hibernian FC Second Half: Boruc, Miller, Doyle-Hayes, Obita, Jair, Campbell, Molotnikov, McAllister, Whittaker, Landers, McGrath.
Unused Substitute: Calder
