Hull FC 26-24 Castleford: Match report and reaction

Hull FC 26-24 Castleford: Match stats

Hull FC tries: Taylor (5), Fonua (8,13), Tuimavave (63)
Conversions/Penalties: Sneyd (6,9,14,36,51) 

Castleford tries: Minikin (23), Roberts (28,58), Shenton (39), McMeeken (79)
Conversions/Penalties: McShane (40,79) 

Hull FC survived Liam Watts' first-half sending off to beat Super League leaders Castleford 26-24 at the KCOM Stadium.

Watts left Luke Gale poleaxed in the 22nd minute with Hull in control of the game leading 18-0 and, while Castleford rallied with their extra-man advantage, the hosts' resolve saw them edge a victory by two points.

In the build-up to this game, questions were asked about Hull's defence after leaking 106 points in their previous two games over Easter. But it was the Tigers' defence that was put under pressure first.

Albert Kelly sent Scott Taylor through for the opening score of the game and Marc Sneyd converted for a 6-0 lead.

In their very next set, Jake Connor did well to send Mahe Fonua over for his first try of the match with Sneyd again on target with the conversion.

Sneyd was the provider for Fonua's second score when his kick caused confusion in the Castleford defence to allow the winger to score Hull's third try in the opening 15 minutes.

Watts' received a red card after 22 minutes and that sending off gave the visitors a way back into the game and they wasted little time in cutting the deficit to 18-4 when Greg Minikin backed himself to score. With first-choice kicker Gale on the sidelines, Ben Roberts took over kicking duties but pulled his first attempt wide.

His second chance six minutes later was a shocker from close range after he scored from dummy half.

With the gap now reduced to 10 points, Sneyd's penalty made it 20-8 with four minutes of the first half remaining.

That was plenty of time for the Tigers to end the opening period with a try from Michael Shenton after good work from Jake Webster. Roberts finally got his range and converted to leave Castleford trailing 20-14 at the break.

Sneyd missed a chance to make it an eight-point lead when his penalty near the right touchline nine minutes into the second half drifted wide.

When given another chance immediately, former Tigers loanee Sneyd made sure Castleford - now on a team warning - were eight points adrift.

Junior Moors wasted a good chance for the visitors as he lost the ball over Hull's try line in the 57th minute.

The home side were doing themselves no favours gifting possession back to the league leaders in their next set.

This time they made no mistake with Roberts diving over the line from close range. Roberts passed the conversion to Paul McShane, who missed.

With a quarter of the game left to play, Hull led 22-18 and their nerves were eased thanks to a piece of brilliance from Kelly. His kick to the corner was gathered by Steve Michaels who offloaded to Carlos Tuimavave to score.

But Sneyd's missed touchline conversion kept the door open for Castleford.

Despite Mike McMeeken's last-minute converted try, Hull hung on to send the Tigers to their third defeat of the season as the home side moved to within a point of their opponents.

Hull FC coach Lee Radford on his side's character: "We're not making a big deal out of this win. We've been good, not great, but the time to be great is at the end of the season, like Wigan showed last season.

"We're not far away at all and when the big fixtures come we need to be ready.

"I'm really pleased with this win. Prior to the game I asked for a performance that was worthy of us.

"Until Liam's sending off we were well on top. I saw that in a different performance after we went down to 12 men, which was an unbelievable effort.

"I could sense confidence at half-time and we came up with try savers - and that builds more confidence."

On Watts' red card: "You can have your own opinion on that when you see it again.

"There was a period where they got a lift from Liam going off and we conceded some points. But the willingness to turn up for each other was pleasing.

"And I asked for the fans to play their part and they picked us up several times."

Tigers coach Daryl Powell on a lack of composure from his charges: "It was still doable, but we panicked. Hull were superb and started like a house on fire and we were nowhere to be seen, which was disappointing.

"When they went down to 12 men, we spoke about being calm - but they kept us out. I'm not taking anything away from Hull as it was a tremendous effort.

"To lose Gale was a blow and we lost some clarity as we couldn't get our combinations together and we made too many errors."