Brett Hodgson defends Jake Connor and gives transfer update

Both Jake Connor and Brad Fash have been banned for one match, but Brett Hodgson believes that those bans were harsh.

“We felt that both of these weren’t reckless, they were careless at best,” Hodgson said.

“We took it to the tribunal and fought our case and unfortunately they upheld the bans – it means that someone else will come into our group, but we still go into the game confident that we will perform.”

Connor engaged in a highly-publicised battle with Zak Hardaker last Thursday, but Hodgson feels that the Hull fullback gains unnecessary attention.

“I think Jake gets niggled quite a lot; there’s a lot of blame put on Jake, but i don’t believe he instigates a lot of what he’s accused of doing.

“We love what Jake is doing for our group, we will continue to support him.

“We don’t want to rein him in because he’s a quality player and he’s got the ability to turn the game on its head.”

With Connor banned for this weekend’s Challenge Cup fixture against Wigan, Hodgson has a head-scratcher for the fullback position.

“We will recall Connor Wynne into our squad, but we have a couple of other options which we will look into such as Josh Griffin and Adam Swift.

“How we progress towards the back end of the week though is kept in house.”

With a number of front-rowers out of the side, Hodgson has identified this as an area in which Hull need to strengthen.

“It’s something we established as a concern in pre-season; if we got injuries to our front-row, we’d be thin and we need to rely on those taking to the field on Saturday.

“Scott (Taylor) is the best case of something that could have been far worse; he’s got a fracture, but thankfully it’s not the worst case scenario.

“We’ve continually looked into the market for someone who will improve our squad rather than fill our gap, but that’s changed and now we’re looking at footage of certain players.

“However, unless they fit into our culture and they are what we’re looking for, we’re happy with what we’ve got.”

Hodgson does have some good news in the shape of Josh Reynolds returning.

“Josh Reynolds is fit which is a big boost; he’s obviously a high quality player and he’s been training really well.

“He’s got through everything we’ve put him through this week.”

The Hull boss is excited to go head-to-head with Wigan again, especially in a competition such as the Challenge Cup.

“I love the challenge cup, it’s such a prestigious competition and we know we need to be at our best to progress.

“We’re excited to take on Wigan again – we were close against them last week, but we just weren’t good enough to get over the line.

“We need to put in an 80 minute performance but we’re confident we can get through it.”