Mowbray hits out at ref as Hibs humbled

Dnipro 5 Hibernian 1 (5-1 on aggregate)

Derek Riordan had hauled the Edinburgh side level after Sergiy Nazarenko’s early opener.

But the young Hibernian defence went to sleep again just two minutes later as Bogdan Shershun pounced before Oleg Shelayev scored from the spot after a controversial decision by referee Fritz Stuchlik to penalise Chris Hogg for a foul on Sergey Kornilenko.

The Austrian was accused of almost wrecking Scotland’s Euro 2004 qualifying hopes when he awarded Lithuania a dubious penalty in April 2003 and Mowbray felt he got it wrong again.

“You know better than me what happened at the penalty whether it was a soft penalty or a blatant one,” said the Englishman.

“But it looked soft from where I was and I thought that was the turning point.”

Mowbray felt the scoreline was harsh but he believes his youngsters and even himself will learn a valuable lesson from this experience.

Olexandr Melashchenko rubbed salt into the wounds of the gutsy Hibernian kids with a stunning late strike.

DNIPRO: Kusliy, Gritsay, Shelayev, Kornilenko, Kotenko, Radchenko, Rusol, Semochko, Andrienko, Shershun, Nazarenko.

HIBERNIAN: Malkowski, Beuzelin, Caldwell, Murphy, O’Connor, Riordan, Sproule, Stewart, Hogg, Thomson, Whittaker.

Referee: Fritz Stuchlik (Austria).