Thistle are hit by an avalanche of goals

effort as Thistle did at Easter Road, especially at a time of the year

when kindness rules.

There was not much lucky white heather about for the Glasgow side,

certainly not for keeper Andy Murdoch. He was brought on to replace

concussed Craig Nelson at the start of the second half, then saw his

team, who were 1-0 down at the time, equalise. He must have had visions

of an unexpectedly rewarding afternoon's work. Instead, he had to endure

a mini-avalanche of goals as Hibs went slightly berserk to record their

biggest win for two years.

There had been no hint of such a startling conclusion in the first

half, when Thistle were a shade the better side and could consider

themselves genuinely unlucky to be a goal down at the interval.

That Hibs goal had a touch of the bizarre about it, too. A Mitchell

cross from the left was met by Hamilton, but ricocheted, first off

Cameron and then himself, before finally hitting Nelson on the way over

the line.

Even then, the odds were that Thistle would recover, and so they did.

Grant Tierney scored with a remarkable overhead kick. The ball hit the

underside of the bar and ended up behind Jim Leighton.

But that was to be the last bit of good news for the Firhill followers

in the 10,164 attendance. Inside a minute Hibs had gone ahead again,

when David Farrell headed in a cross from Joe Tortolano.

Whatever that did to Thistle (and it clearly did their confidence no

good) it fairly put Hibs on turbo and they sped into almost unstoppable

form. Darren Jackson scored from the penalty spot after Tierney had

tripped Keith Wright and Kevin McAllister went on a flying run before

sending an angled shot into the net off the far post.

In the 10 minutes before the final goal Murdoch had a wonderful save

from Farrell, Hibs might have had a second penalty, and Thistle were

chasing green shirts all over the place. With nine minutes left Wright

came up with the fifth goal and gave Hibs the kind of lift that manager

Alex Miller had demanded after their depressing show at Parkhead last

week.

''I showed them the reports of that game and told them that if they

were happy with that they should not be here,'' he said. ''I was

delighted with the way we played today and it was important that we came

back quickly after they equalised.''

Not surprisingly, his opposite number, John Lambie, was in less

benevolent mood. ''I thought we were a disgrace after having come back

into the game. We lost the place altogether. There was no discipline and

we stopped working. We made Hibs look a good side. I did not think any

team could take five off us.''

It would be true to say that Hibs had not looked all that special

earlier on, and when they had to replace Gordon Hunter, who had suffered

the recurrence of a leg injury, at the beginning of the second half

their prospects did not look cast-iron. But once they had their wagon

rolling there was no halting them. They will go into the derby game with

Hearts at Tynecastle on Saturday filled with renewed confidence, despite

the fact that they have not won an inter-city clash for five years.

Thistle went home bedraggled and baffled at what went wrong. Even Chic

Charnley, who had been buffeted about as he threatened to run the

midfield, ended up being booked, but he was far from the worst offender.

Whoever it was, Chic or one of his mates, somebody at Firhill upset

Santa.

HIBERNIAN -- Leighton, Miller, Mitchell, Farrell, Beaumont, Hunter,

McAllister, Hamilton, Wright, Jackson, Tortolano. Substitutes -- Evans,

Tweed, Reid.

PARTICK THISTLE -- Nelson, McKee, Law, Tierney, Jamieson, Cameron,

Gibson, Craig, Britton, Taylor, Charnley. Substitutes -- English, Clark,

Murdoch.

Referee -- J A Herald (Newton Mearns).