Hull took on ambitious division one side Darlington in a pre season ‘friendly’ last night in front of a good crowd at the former Darlington football ground which has been the home of DMP for a few years now. There were many good things that fell to Hull’s credit but ball retention errors in the first half proved very costly as a Darlington side made very good use of any turnover ball.
Darlington got off to a flying start scoring a try after just three minutes and further tries in the 19th, 28th, 32nd, 38th and 40th minutes, of which five were converted and saw Hull trailing 40-0 at half-time.
It would be fair to say that the visitors did not have the rub of the green with one try being allowed after a quick throw had been intercepted by DMP, but not before a Darlington player just a yard from the touchline stopped the quick throw by attempting to grab the ball which should have resulted in a free kick to Hull.
Nevertheless, Hull had a number of ball handling errors to thank for inviting pressure back on themselves. On the plus side Hull’s line out worked well and they always kept trying to play rugby and it was a pity that a number of promising attacks were halted as passes did not go to hand.
Having gone into the break losing 40- 0 Hull needed to up their game, but when DMP scored a try within a minute of the restart it seemed that a difficult night was in prospect. How wrong could any of us have been.
Hull then scored 21 unanswered points and showed just what they could do. The introduction of prop Charlie Beech and back rower Latu Maka’afi helped to give Hull real momentum. Darlington had no answer to Hull’s second half scrummaging and as the alarm bells started to ring Darlington over stepped the mark and had two players sinned binned in quick succession.
One for a dangerous tackle and another for a scrum offence thereby matching Hull’s two yellow cards in the first period. Hull took full advantage of the numerical superiority as they immediately saw David Halaifonua go in under the posts after 52 minutes.
This was followed by tries for Bureta Faraimo and Harry Gunn-McLean, all of which were converted by the excellent Reece Dean whose conversion from the touchline for McLean’s try rounded off a good night’s work for him and the team as a whole.
Every player had good moments and a really spirited comeback by Hull should put them in good heart for their first league game of the season next week away at Otley. It will not be easy and ball retention will play an important part in the outcome.
HULL RUGBY UNION FOOTBALL CLUB 