Dev Squad Report: Hibs 2 Hamilton 0

The Hibs Dev Squad recorded a 2-0 victory over Hamilton Academical on Tuesday afternoon in the SPFL Reserve Cup.

First half strikes from Dean Cleland and Rudi Molotnikov secured the victory for the Hibees, despite being reduced to 10-men in the second half after Nohan Kenneh was sent off for two bookable offences.

Guillaume Beuzelin’s side included a mixture of Academy youngsters and fringe First Team players – providing a valuable opportunity to get more match minutes into the legs at HTC.

Max Boruc started the match in goal, behind a back four of Rory Whittaker, Nohan Kenneh, Joseph McGrath and Lewis Gillie.

Fellow First Team players, Nathan Moriah-Welsh, Jake Doyle-Hayes, Rudi Molotnikov, Dylan Levitt and Josh Campbell were all included in the starting line-up with Dean Cleland leading the line for the Hibees.

But it was the two youngsters, Cleland and Molotnikov that combined to open the scoring for the Hibees on 18 minutes. Rudi got into a good position on the left-hand side before cutting it back and picking out Cleland inside the penalty area. The forward made no mistake with the finish, striking the ball hard and low into the bottom corner.

We doubled our lead just after the hour mark, this time through Rudi Molotnikov. The 18-year-old took advantage of a slack pass out from the Hamilton ‘keeper, with Rudi punishing the mistake and slotting home into an empty net.

We were reduced to 10 in the second half when Nohan Kenneh was shown a yellow card, with Beuzelin reshuffling his defensive backline – introducing Jamie McMurdo at left back (replacing Rory Whittaker) and Josh Campbell moving to right-back.

The numerical disadvantage didn’t hamper Hibs and we saw out the remainder of the match to claim an important three points.

The result moves us up to five points in the Reserve Cup after two matches, with our final game taking place against Queen’s Park on Tuesday 17 December.

Hibs Dev Squad: Boruc, Whittaker, Gillie, Kenneh, McGrath, Moriah-Welsh, Doyle-Hayes, Cleland, Levitt, Molotnikov, Campbell.