Hull lost out to a side who had ambitions to play Championship rugby next season and who have lost only three games in this campaign. The visitors have been scoring heavily against other sides in the lower half of the division including Leeds and Esher in recent weeks, so Hull were warned.
Hull, who were led out by Mike Jobling on his 200th appearance for the club, were never short of effort, but a clinical Cambridge side scored at regular intervals especially in the latter stages of each half when a side that has put in a huge tackling effort tends to tire.
Hull started the game well with Mike Adlard sprinting over in the third minute for a try converted by Reece Dean. Timoci Waqadau deserves a lot of credit for the brilliant one-hand assist from a long kick downfield by Dean.
Cambridge took a little while to regroup, but they eventually took control to run in 49 unanswered points by half-time. Hooker Ben Brownlie scored three of his side’s seven first half tries with Kieran Frost, Anthony Maka, Joe Tarrant, and Nana Kwaku Asiedu also going over in a rampant display.
The second period was always going to be difficult for the home side and a nice try by young scrum half Joe Barratt was Hull’s only score as Cambridge amassed 33 more points to run out overwhelming victors 82-12. Replacement Matt Williams went over twice along with Asiedu for his second of the game and fly-half Steffan James who took his points tally in the game to 27 points thanks to a try and 11 successful conversions from 12 attempt.
Next week, Hull end their season with another home game against Bishop’s Stortford. It’s also Ex Players Day, so if you know of someone who played for the club in the past, please encourage them to come down and spend the afternoon with former team-mates reminiscing about the good old days.
HULL RUGBY UNION FOOTBALL CLUB 