The customary post-match clap was met by a torrent of jeers but for Hibs, the damage had already been done. Two goals conceded in ten minutes saw them booed off at the break, and conceding a third just seven minutes after the restart prompted many of the already slimmed-down home support to head for the exits while the Aberdeen fans in the away end enjoyed their trip to the capital.  

There have been plenty of draws and defeats for Hibs this season prefaced with words such as dismal, lacklustre and, in the case of those influenced by VAR decisions, unlucky. But Sunday's drubbing, their heaviest home league defeat at the hands of the Dons since March 1985, was the first to carry its own prefix: damaging. 

Patrick McPartlin and Liam Bryce discussed Sunday's result and what it means for Hibs in the Monday afternoon briefing, which you can watch in the player above.

Hibs are safe from relegation so these games are essentially dead rubbers. But Aberdeen certainly didn't play as though it was an end-of-season kickabout; aided by Hibs' ineptitude, they played like prime Barcelona for an hour and were deserved winners. 

The statement issued on behalf of the Easter Road board in the aftermath of the team's failure to secure a top-six finish made very clear that Nick Montgomery had to oversee an improvement in results in the bottom six. A 3-1 victory over St Johnstone was a good start but it was followed by an avoidable defeat at Ross County, engineered by two individual errors, and Sunday's heavy defeat by a team that haven't had their problems to seek this season themselves. 

Motherwell visit Leith on Wednesday night for Paul Hanlon and Lewis Stevenson's send-off - but Sunday's humbling may well affect the attendance and it doesn't bear thinking about what a similar performance on the park would do for the atmosphere at Easter Road.