David Gray spoke to the media after Hibs' 5-0 win over Elgin City in the Premier Sports Cup. Here's everything the head coach had to say...

You must be pleased with that result and performance?

“Absolutely. It was a very professional performance. It’s a really tricky place to come and all the pressure was on us, but it was a really professional performance and to score five goals and keep a clean sheet is very pleasing.”

It’s not a given that you can rock up at these places and get a scoreline like that…

“No, it’s not, and it’s a testament to the players. They knew what to expect coming into the game but it’s all about attitude and professionalism. I thought we handled the pressure well. We started quite well, scored the goal, but were a wee bit sloppy after that, and credit to Elgin for coming back into it a bit and causing us a few problems. But once we started to play forward more and gain a bit of control I thought we were well worthy of the win in the end. The subs coming on maintained that intensity as well, which is hugely important."

A hat-trick for Dylan Vente as well…

“I’m pleased for Dylan - strikers love scoring goals and there’s no better feeling than getting a hat-trick, and to do that on day one should give him all the confidence in the world to move forward and hopefully we can keep getting the best out of him."

Have you spoken to him about what you want from him? He struggled a bit last season… 

“We’ve done a lot of work with him already; I think his quality is there for everyone to see, and we certainly saw it today. I don’t want to talk about last season and what we’re doing differently, it’s about us moving forward. I’m delighted he’s managed to start the season with a goal, it should give him that confidence and it’s up to us to keep getting the best out of him.”

The assist from young Rudi Molotnikov to Marvin Ekpiteta must have been particularly pleasing for you?

"Yeah, excellent. Rudi has really stepped up in pre-season. His attitude, his ability to affect games of football. Last season, he trained with us quite a bit and to give him the opportunity today, I think he took it. He did really well. To be honest, it was a collective, everyone did really well today and it would be wrong to single anyone out. The performance, the fitness levels, and the attitude was really good."

Elgin were physical, but the defence stood up well today...

"Yeah. Again, it's a collective, isn't it? The way we want to defend starts from the front, and the reaction every time we lost the ball was good. The goalkeeper and the two centre-backs, they had a tough test. Their striker was a handful but collectively we stood up to it really well."

No Elie Youan today, was that a knock?

"No, he came in yesterday feeling poorly. So it was just the fact he'd be sitting on a bus, and with the way he's feeling at the moment, we didn't want to put the rest of the squad at risk knowing what it was. He's got an illness but hopefully, it's just a minor thing, 24 hours or however long these things can take. He spoke to the doctor this morning and we'll monitor that situation and see how he's feeling. Hopefully, he's feeling better as soon as he can."

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Chris Cadden's injury, is there anything to be concerned about there?

"It's always a concern when players come off. The positive side is that it's an experienced player that's put his hand up, he knows his body. He felt tightness in his thigh, hopefully he's felt it earlier enough and not pushed it too far, which would be great rather than playing through and making it worse. Hopefully, we've managed to get that off as quickly as we can. But until we investigate it further we'll have no idea exactly what it is. It's tightness in his thigh and we'll have to monitor the situation."

The change of shape that came after, was that forced by the injury or were you looking for something different?

"A little bit of both, to be honest. We kept it to half-time, brought Boyley out wide until half-time when we could reassess it. With the personnel, and the way we wanted to affect the game in the second-half, I thought the little change did us the world of good. As I've said already, the subs coming on kept the intensity high. We were really good value after that, created a lot of chances and never really gave much away. All in all, it was a really pleasing and professional performance."