Brett Hodgson has hailed his side having battled through adversity to claim a 17-10 win their third league win in a row against Huddersfield last night.
Hull secured victory with 14 first-team players unavailable to them, but a young and inexperience FC side fighting back from 10-0 down at the break to claim a memorable win on home soil.
Hodgson began his post-match press conference by explaining the win was in fact of more significance than that over Leigh last weekend.
“I’d like to suggest that that is a better and bigger win than last week at Leigh; we had so much adversity going into the game, with so many players missing. The way we came back in the second-half was outstanding, and I’m really proud of the group.
“We’ll take a lot of lessons from that game. Our completion rate before half-time was only at about 52%, which isn’t good enough, and we didn’t give ourselves a chance to put any attacking pressure on their try-line.
“Our try-line defence was excellent once again and we only conceded on try all day, off a kick, and they had the majority of possession in that first-half.
“To fight back like we did and take control of the game after the restart made me extremely proud.”
With Hull’s bench including two academy players in the form of Aidan Burrell and Marcus Walker, both of whom were yet to get a professional appearance under their belt, Hodgson explained how he had to work with his interchanges throughout the match.
“We had to be strategic with the way we managed our interchanges when we realised what the team would be. There wasn’t much experience on the bench, and only had one forward.
“We lost Jordan Lane less than 90 minutes before kick-off, Danny Houghton in the morning, and Adam Swift after team run. When you add those to the players we already had missing, it was a lot to process for us. But we still got up for it and snuck away with the win.
“Adam Swift pulled up with a tight groin after team run, so we didn’t want to risk it. We lost Danny Houghton and Jordan Lane for personal reasons.”
On 17-year old Burrell, who came on in the closing stages to earn his first Hull FC appearance, and Walker, who remained as an unused substitute, he added: “They’ve both come through our Academy system and are really pleased with what they’ve shown.
“They’re well known to our first-team squad having trained with them this season.
“Aidan is a tough kid and has worked extremely hard on the training field. It would have been nice to get them both on and give them a few more minutes, but the situation of the match didn’t permit that in the end.”
Hodgson also praised centre Jack Logan, who had a try-scoring return to the KCOM Stadium having rejoined the club on loan this week.
“I though Jack was really solid. He’s only had one field session with us since joining, but he was busy throughout the game, carried well and finished his try off well too – after making an error early on, his mindset could have gone the wrong way but he stuck to it and managed to get a try on his return.”
Looking ahead to FC’s next fixture against Salford in ten days time, he continued: “The Hull KR postponement gives us the chance for a bit of time off, and get a bit of freshness into the squad. We should have four or five back for that Salford game a week on Monday. We’ll be taking the benefit of that.”
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