Hull coach calls for crisis meeting

Hull coach Lee Radford will hold a crisis meeting following Sunday’s 7-0 defeat to Widnes.

It was their first home defeat of the season and a marked contrast to the same fixture last year, which Hull won 72-10 back in August.

Their performance was littered by handling errors, as Widnes recorded their first ever “nilling” in Super League.

Radford told the club’s official website: “It was the performance we spoke all pre-season about wanting to get out of our DNA.

“From round one to five, you think you’re heading in the right direction, you think you’re doing the right things and you think they’re buying into what you’ve been saying, and then they tossed that performance in.

“We spoke all pre-season about honesty and training with intensity every day, and we’ve done that, but it was old habits from the same faces today.

“I said at half-time that we should have scored 20 points. Kirk Yeaman couldn’t find two passes to his winger, Fetuli Talanoa has a pick up opportunity to score, Jordan Thompson has an opportunity and so does Aaron Heremaia, but it wasn’t to be and we didn’t deserve it.

“Widnes didn’t look like they came here to win, they came here for us to lose it and we did.”

Widnes took the lead inside two minutes, when Patrick Ah Van pounced on a mistake by Jordan Rankin.

That was the only score of the game until the hour mark, when Ah Van added a penalty to stretch the Vikings’ lead to 6-0.

The former Bradford winger missed a difficult two-pointer four minutes later, but Widnes sealed the win when youngster Tom Gilmore tagged on a drop goal with nine minutes left.