With newly crowned champions Hamrun in a class of their own, the fight for European places is becoming more interesting and yesterday’s match between Birkirkara and Hibernians was much awaited.

However it turned out in a no contest. Birkirkara gave a five star performance against a sloppy Hibernians side winning convincingly 5‐0 with the match dead and buried inside the first half.

Ciolacu and Paul Mbong scored a brace each with Coppola get‐ ting the other one for Giovanni Tedesco’s side.

For Hibernians this was a nightmare match. Silvio Vella made several changes to the side but the outcome was cata‐ strophic.

Too many errors especially in defence with the Paolites easily giving away three of the first four goals suffered in the first half.

Trailing by four goals by the break, Hibernians introduced Al‐dama in the second half and this was Hibs’ best patch, with Men‐ sah even the upright.

But minutes later Birkirkara scored a wonder goal, the last and best of the lot to send Hiber‐ nians reeling.

The Stripes too hit the upright through Ribeiro who had an out‐ standing performance, and Kone made a couple of outstanding saves to avoid further humilia‐ tion.

On five minutes Cabrera robbed Llerna of the ball and squared to Ciolacu who easily shot home.

On 21 minutes Coppola drilled home fiollowing another Ribeiro cross and six minutes later Paul Mbong pounced on yet another defensive blunder to fie past Kone.

Kone was at fault on the fourth goal scored by Paul Mbong who chested home a Yankam cross.

Hibs’ misery was complete on 58 minutes when Ribeiro crossed beautifully from the left towards Ciolacu who first‐timed beautifully past Kone.

The win lifts the Stripes to sec‐ ond place and leaves Hibernians five points adrift and practically out of the race for the European places next June.

Photo: Domenic Aquilina