Zak Hardaker has opened up on the ‘harsh words’ said in the Hull FC dressing room at half-time of their clash with Wakefield Trinity. The Black and Whites claimed a 16-10 win over the West Yorkshire side with Hardaker, Jordan Rapana and Lewis Martin getting themselves over the line on a balmy night at the MKM Stadium.
However, John Cartwright’s side had to come from behind to claim the win as Wakefield took a 10-point lead into the interval with Max Jowitt scoring a try and slotting three goals. The home side were loose with the ball and error heavy in the first half, with knock-ons characterising their showing in the first 40.
They managed to tighten things up after the break, though, and as Wakefield dropped off, Hull found the opportunities they needed to leapfrog Daryl Powell’s side and move back into the top six.
“We make it hard for ourselves,” Hardaker told Sky Sports after the contest. “The last three or four weeks now we’ve been gifting them easy ball and defending our line for large parts of games. We’ve done that again tonight.
“There were some harsh words there at half-time that we needed to fix up and address and we certainly did that coming out for the second half. A good performance in the end.”
Pushed on what was said at half-time, Hardaker said: “It’s a flip of a coin between me and Sezer. We just looked down and out and defeated when it was 4-0 so we just spoke about the belief that we need and we showed in the early parts of the season and we needed to dig deep tonight in the second half.
“I think we showed that and what a courageous group we can be at times. The second half performance was pretty good but there’s things to work on from the first half.”
The win was Hull’s first on home soil for a year, with the Black and Whites’ last success at the MKM Stadium coming last July against Wigan Warriors, with 10 losses and one draw coming in between.
Asked how good that felt, the Hull full-back said: “Really good. Every time we step on this field we want to do the city of Hull proud, they turn out in numbers every week and to finally get a win for them, it’s good.
“Not just that, it was Fash’s 200th tonight so really important for him. Overall a good night.”
