HIBERNIAN marked Lee Johnson’s first game as manager with a 2-0 friendly win over Paul Hartley’s Hartlepool in Portugal.
The Easter Road side scored either side of the interval with goals from Ewan Henderson and Ryan Porteous.
In the searing heat of the Amendoeira Golf Resort in the Algarve, which necessitated half-hourly water breaks and left a sticky, dry pitch, Johnson sent out two different XIs for 45 minutes each in a bid to sharpen up ahead of the new campaign.
There were starts for new recruits David Marshall, Lewis Miller, Kyle McClelland, Nohan Kenneh, Jair Tavares and Elie Youan in a 4-2-3-1 formation.
Former Celtic winger Aiden McGeady, signed on a 12-month deal last Friday, was joined by the likes of Porteous, Elias Melkersen, Joe Newell and Christian Doidge in turning out for the second 45 minutes.
Henderson gave Hibs the lead in the 27th minute, drilling in a left-foot finish after Jake Doyle-Hayes had won the ball back high up the pitch.
Porteous nodded in the second from a Newell corner six minutes into the second-half before Melkersen had a third ruled out for offside.
Hartley gave Hartlepool run-outs to new signings Reghan Tumilty, Euan Murray, Kyle Letheren and Jake Hastie but Hibs dominated in front of around 100 of their fans who had made the trip for the game and a second friendly against Burton Albion on Friday.
Meanwhile, skipper Paul Hanlon has revealed he is closing in on a return to training and is eyeing a comeback at the start of the Premiership season.
With Kevin Nisbet, Demetri Mitchell and Kyle Magennis, the defender is one of four players who have travelled to Portugal as they recover from injury.
Hanlon, who made his 500th appearance for the club last month, needed a tidy-up knee operation earlier this summer and is behind his team-mates in their pre-season preparations but ready to step up his rehabilitation.
He said: “It’s going well. It’s at the stage now where I’m not too far away from beginning to run again.
“It’s been a bit frustrating coming out here when the lads are out working hard and I’m making my way to the gym every day.
“But it’s been good to be here with all the new lads settling in and for team morale.
“From a personal point of view, I’m looking forward to getting back on a pitch and getting running, and then building up the fitness towards the start of the season.
“With a new manager coming in, and with new principles in place, I’ll be a little bit behind at the start.
“But I’ll just need to work really hard and take it on board as quickly as possible so I can get back in the team.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here