Goals
12 - Gary Alexander - Williams played the ball in to Alexander, and he turned Tillson superbly before stroking the ball beyond Turley and in to the bottom corner.
70 - Jason Van Blerk - Van Blerk was allowed to run through from midfield unchallenged and he took advantage, rifling the ball in to the bottom corner from the edge of the area.
77 - Richie Hanlon - Matthew Wicks was ajudged to have felled Lowe in the area and after some serious protesting, (during which Van Blerk was sent off for a second bookable offence) Hanlon smashed the spot kick in to the roof of the net.
Hull City
(4-4-2) Musselwhite, Van Blerk, Wicks, Greaves, Edwards, Beresford (Holt 30), Sneekes (Whittle 61), Johnsson, Williams (Philpott 80), Alexander, Dudfield
Not Used - Glennon, Roberts
Bookings - Williams, Van Blerk
Sendings Off - Van Blerk
Rushden+Ds
Turley, Underwood, Tillson, Peters, Mustafa, Gray (Brady 45) (Douglas 79), Wardley, Hanlon, Hall, Lowe, Partridge (Darby 45)
Not Used - Pennock, Mills
Bookings - Brady
Referee
Mr Coburn - The less said the better - A complete arse. Infuriated by not sending off or even booking Tillson for holding back Dudfield when he was through on goal, then dismissing Jason Van Blerk for dissent minutes later. Also gave a number of petty decisions against us throughout the game.
Attendance
8,825 - Our biggest in recent weeks. Around 500 from Rushden, but none from Diamonds, for some reason.
Brief Notes
A very good afternoon's work. The Tigers triumphed despite having to contend with a host of decisions given unfairly against them, and took 3 valuable points against one of their close rivals in the table. The win was very pleasing, as City never really looked in danger all afternoon, and looked more like the team we saw earlier in the season. With more performances of this ilk in the coming weeks, there would still be a chance of automatic promotion. It is vital, though, that City follow up a win for once and go on a good run. One victory is fine, but we need to go on and get 4 or 5 in a row at the moment.
There is still room for improvement, but the key is undoubtedly consistancy. The players can play better than they did today, and probably will do at some point in the near future. But today highlighted the fact that is not imperative to play brilliantly all the time in order to get promotion from Division 3. Just playing well will often do, but you have to do it on a regular basis. If we are to go up, we need a much improved level of consistency from now until the end of the season. No more awful displays at places like York, no more playing well for only half a game, etc etc. A few wins in a row, and a settled level of performance and run of results.
They Said
Brian Little, speaking to the Official Site, www.hullcityafc.net
"I was pleased to win and in terms of the game we probably had the worst end of the refereeing decisions. Certainly there were two that had a major bearing on the game rather than the result. Lawrie was clean though before being pulled down and the referee should have sent a player off but between himself and his assistant he couldn't decide who was the guilty party so Rushden got away with that."
"He then awarded a debatable penalty to them, although having had time to run it through my head I can see why he gave it. But then to send Jason off for objecting to the decision was a bit silly because if players don't jump up and down and shout a lot when a penalty is given against them then they never will. So to have to contend with those decisions and still come out victors is a tremendous achievement from the players."
"I thought we definitely deserved to win the game and at 2-1 with just over ten minutes to go we defended reasonably well. They got a couple of dangerous crosses into the box but didn't get in behind us. I suppose it was a games of ups and downs as we started brightly, endured a difficult end to the first half, looked good again at 2-0 and then finally had to hang on in that last period. But overall I genuinely believe we were worthy winners and it's a great three points for us. We could play better and will try to do so but we're back in some sort of groove."
On the substitutions of Beresford and Sneekes
"David has a hamstring problem but it'll be about 48 hours before we know just how serious it is. I took Richard off because he was limping a little bit at the start of the second half but we don't think he's a major worry at this moment in time. The thinking was that throwing Justin on wouldn't weaken us at all and it gave me the opportunity to put Greavsie and Julian in the middle of the park which helped us in the context of the game. Obviously Richard didn't want to come off, no player does, but it seemed to the right decision at the time."
"The main thing is that we got the result and we can look forward to backing it up at Torquay next weekend."
Brian Talbot, rambling to the Official Rushden Site
“Performance wise, I was not too displeased. I can honestly say that we are getting a team together now who are not frightened to go to places like Hull. I thought the players were first class today and alright, we did lose a game of football, but if you get your performances’ right week-in-week-out you will start to get the right results in a period of time."
“Today we have come to Hull, who are one of the favourites to go up this year, and we have matched them every inch of the way and we should have got something from the match. We have had some good performances away from home this season but it’s results that count at the end of the day. However we are getting stronger and better and we are confident wherever we go."
“Alan Tillson has come in today and he was very good so we are generally finding our feet and doing very well. Our target was always 50 points and it still is, and I now want to reach that target next Saturday. If you look at today I was impressed with our passing and we created a number of chances but we just failed to take them.”
Video
Highlights of the action can be found here, via the Official Site, www.hullcityafc.net |
