Hibs 3 Kilmarnock 0

Goals from Owen Elding, Felix Passlack and Ante Šuto earned us a 3-0 victory over Kilmarnock this afternoon at Easter Road Stadium.

In doing so we maintained our incredible record this term of never being beaten after scoring first in the Scottish Premiership – winning 15 and drawing just two.

Elding’s goal after just 13 seconds is the fastest in the topflight this season – and the second fastest in the Premiership era; it saw us get off to the perfect start and we were 2-0 ahead before Killie really got going when Passlack doubled our lead.

In time added on Šuto notched our third goal to put a flattering reflection on the scoreline as we closed the gap on Motherwell to just three points in the Premiership table.

David Gray made four enforced changes to the side that drew with Motherwell before the international break. Nicky Cadden and Rocky Bushiri missed out while Martin Boyle and Šuto dropped to the bench. Their places in the starting XI were taken by Jordan Obita, Grant Hanley, Dane Scarlett and Elding. 

There was also an impeccably observed minute's applause before the match for Hibernian FC Hall of Famer, Alex Cropley, who passed away on Friday 27 March.

The Hibees in the crowd were promptly back on their feet just moments later after kick-off, as we made a blistering start to the match and opened the scoring after only 13 seconds when Passlack fed Elding in behind the Killie defence and he finished clinically past Kelle Roos.

10 minutes later it was 2-0. Elding was again heavily involved, slicing the Killie rearguard wide open with a through ball that isolated Jamie Brandon and allowed Obita to run in behind on the left; he drew Roos from goal before squaring to Passlack to turn into the empty net. 

The visitors had little response to our pace and movement, and we again went close when Passlack’s cross from the right picked out Jamie McGrath and his looping header dropped just over the crossbar. 

On 22 minutes Elding played a one-two with Obita as Kiltie failed to track his run allowing the forward into surge into their box unchallenged, he squared the ball across goal and only a last-gasp sliding clearance from Aaron Tshibola denied us a third goal.

Killie had barely been in our defensive third in the opening 25 minutes, however they thought they had pulled one back with their first foray forward when we failed to clear our lines and from Brad Lyons' cut-back, as Findlay Curtis swept a low shot past Raphael Sallinger. A lengthy VAR check confirmed Lyons had been offside and thankfully, the goal didn’t stand.

The final 15 minutes of the half belonged to the visitors, and they put us under pressure with a series of corner kicks. 

Shortly before the break Killie worked the ball to the edge of our area before a low shot from Greg Kiltie drew a save from Sallinger.

We had a claim for a penalty-kick just four minutes after the interval when McGrath collected a cut-back from Passlack and appeared to have his heels clipped as he set himself for a shot at goal. Referee Calum Scott waved play on, as did VAR, to the bemusement of the Irish midfielder.

Killie were much improved after the break and were pushing us back. On 57 minutes a misplaced pass out from the back by Jack Iredale gifted a shooting opportunity to Joe Hugill, only for him to finish wildly off target from the edge of our box.

On 64 minutes Sallinger had to acrobatically beat away a deflected Kiltie effort as the Ayrshire men began knocking at our door in search of a way back into the contest.

Soon after that we were almost hit on the counterattack after a long ball forward sent substitute Marley Watkins clear; he drove towards our box but before he could shoot Hanley got back to steal the ball away with a fantastic interception.

The Ayrshire men had put us under a lot of pressure in the second half however our defence stood up tall to everything they threw at us. Indeed, deep into stoppage time, we broke away to finally kill the game off.

Josh Campbell’s diagonal ball found substitute Boyle in acres of space on the right and from his driven cross Šuto slid in to notch our third goal of the game.