Hibs 3 Birkirkara 0

Hibernians inflicted  total humiliation on Birkirkara and the 3-0 scoreline does not do justice to the overwhelming superiority of Mark Miller's side over the Stripes.

Before the match, the Englishman called on his players to show their true mettle against Birkirkara and they responded in spectacular fashion.

Hibernians got a timely breakthrough just before halftime.

From a corner by Cohen, Rodolfo Soares worked some space before turning and firing the ball into the roof of the net.

Cilia halted some of Hibernians' momentum after the change of ends when he took advantage of slack marking to shoot at Muscat.

But it made little difference amid a torrent of near misses and saves from the desperately exposed Mora.

Birkirkara survived on the hour strike when they were undone again by another piece of Edison creation, linking with substitute Steve Pisani before dispatching the finish past the motionless Stripes keeper, only to be denied by the post.

With Patrick Curmi's side in disarray, Edison lashed a finish which Mora turned into a corner after 63 minutes. Before, Cilia briefly interrupted the one-way flow towards Birkirkara's goal but he chipped his shot over.

It barely seemed possible for matters to get worse for Birkirkara, but the agony increased after 74 minutes, when Mora rushed out to deal with Cohen's cross; however his mis-kick saw the ball loop behind him, leaving Edison with the easy task of tapping into an empty net.

Three minutes later it was 3-0, both Cohen and Edison had a huge hand in helping Failla to put the goal into the net. The Brazilian sped down the right then cut inside and exchanged the ball with Cohen who laid the ball back to Failla to score.

At death, Cohen squandered an opportunity to get on the score sheet after referee Esther Azzopardi awarded a penalty when Zerafa tangled with the nippy midfielder in the area. Mora who has had a mixed game he dived to his right to make a fine a save.