“Fages picking up the ball is part of the game” says Brett Hodgson in cup defeat

Hull FC played their part in a wonderful Challenge Cup semi-final, but one moment in particular stood out for its controversy.

When Josh Griffin went to ground in agony midway through the first-half, clutching his Achilles, the centre dropped the ball. Theo Fages picked up and raced over the line. But, Brett Hodgson said it was part and parcel of the game.

“Josh has ruptured his Achilles; he’s obviously hurting pretty badly at the minute,” Hodgson said.

“But, Fages picking up the ball is part of the game, it was an error.

“I don’t think Theo is a dirty player, he saw the ball on the ground and did what he had to do at the time.

“Everyone was more concerned with how Josh went on the ground.”

Hodgson rued the intercept try when Regan Grace ran 90 metres off a Jake Connor pass.

“It’s obviously very hard to take at the moment, we were effectively one play off scoring or potentially putting more pressure on at the back end of the game.

“The scoreline didn’t reflect the second-half in particular; we’re just very disappointed.

We normally execute that play and Jake Connor hits that pass 99 times out of 100 and the one time he doesn’t is against St Helens and Regan Grace runs 100 metres.

“It’s fine margins but we have to focus on competing well in the rest of Super League now.”

The Hull boss also said that the dressing room was full of emotion.

“I can’t be too angry at the players for that, but I never lost faith that we wouldn’t get there in the end.

“Both teams were out on their feet for large parts of the game, losing Josh when we did affected us along the line.

“There are a few boys shedding some tears in there, there was a lot of effort put in that performance.

“We showed in that second-half that we wanted to play a bit more going forward.

“It was a real hard slog in that first period and we lacked a bit of energy but we were almost good enough to beat St Helens.”