Hull FC turned in their most impressive performance of the season so far to beat Wigan Warriors. That’s the belief of head coach John Cartwright, who watched his Hull side dismantle Wigan at the Brick Community Stadium, winning 32-12.
That was a win that proved enough for FC to move back up to sixth in the Super League table and with just eight games left they have to be considered favourites to claim that final spot in the play-offs.
The head coach’s son, Jed Cartwright got Hull’s first two, with the first coming on the back of a mistake from Christian Wade, while the second came from a fine piece of play from Aidan Sezer. The FC skipper got the third of the afternoon himself before second half efforts from Jordan Rapana and Jack Ashworth rounded of a spectacular performance and result.
It’s no wonder that Cartwright could be head waxing lyrical after the game then.
Hull FC boss reacts to win over Wigan Warriors
“I think we’ve been building to that,” Cartwright beamed while speaking to Sky Sports. “We’ve had some results we’d like to take back but unfortunately you can’t do that.
“I just have to compliment the players, there’s been some harsh sessions in video and on the field but you go through it, deal with it, move on and try and get better. Today was probably our best performance of the season.
“Their energy was great. You’re never safe with Wigan, they made a few line breaks in the first half but I liked our hunger to get back onside and be smart about it, too.
“They reconnected themselves and we end up getting man on man and make the tackle. We were not only courageous, I thought we played really smart as well.
“It’s one of those games you talk about and you hope it comes to fruition. To get in the arm wrestle and throw everything at your defence, try and get a repeat set or a penalty and just earn your way out of your half and build some pressure. It’s sort of how it panned out, you don’t get many games like that. It would be an easy job as a head coach if you could have a magic wand and make that happen every week.”
To make the win even better, Hull did it without a number of star names in their ranks and those absences meant they used youngsters Matty Laidlaw and Will Hutchinson off the bench.
“We were a little bit light,” Cartwright added. “We carried Tom Briscoe on the bench and we had a little bit of a Plan B to move Zak from full-back because Jed is still limiting his minutes and Zak was dong such a good job at full-back so unfortunately Tommy missed out.
“Blokes like young Hutch and Matty Laidlaw, I thought they were tremendous when they came on the field. You have to be a little bit worried, the young boys haven’t played a lot of Super League against the best there is and I thought they handled themselves really well.”
