Mike Eccles’ pride as London Broncos claim first Super League win upon top flight return

London Broncos claimed their first win upon their return to Super League with a 34-18 victory over struggling Hull FC in the capital.

Despite Hull opening the scoring through Herman Ese’ese, London led 16-12 at the break thanks to first half tries from Alex Walker, James Meadows and Robbie Storey.

Hull forward Yusuf Aydin edged Hull into an 18-16 lead in the 46th minute but from then on it was all London, with tries from Jarred Bassett, Lee Kershaw and Oli Leyland seeing the Broncos secure their first win of the season thanks to a 34-18 win over Hull, who they now sit level on points with in the Super League table.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, London coach Mike Eccles cut an incredibly proud figure as his side got their first victory in Super League in 2024.

Eccles said: “We’ve been working so hard since November. It’s been really hard for the boys, we’ve just had to keep picking them up, they’ve been getting knocked down every week and there’s been some heavy scorelines and some poor performances.

“In other games, we’ve done some really good stuff but we’ve got beat by 40 and that’s tough to handle mentally.. You come in on a Monday and you try to ready the boys and get some belief into them on the back of 40, 50, 60 point drummings so it’s been tough, but credit to the boys, I can’t tell you how hard they work every week but at some point you need some evidence to suggest that we are getting better, that the fix ups we’re doing are right and we’ve finally got that now.

“I think there was a big swing. The Hull game away (Round 3, 28-24 defeat) was a massive swing, I was gutted that day because it would have got the monkey off our back early and probably made us relax a little bit more so to go this deep in to not have a win was tough but we’ve got it now and we’ve got a few players back, so it’s a massive building block, so massive credit to the staff who are working so hard.”

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Mike Eccles: The boys nailed the game plan

Eccles, who hails from Leigh, was beaming with pride as his Broncos side defeated Hull to get their first points on the board in the Super League table on Sunday afternoon.

Eccles told Sky Sports: “I’ve been gutted with how things have kind of unfolded since we got promoted, and the one thing I’m really gutted with is the fact we’ve not been able to put our best foot forward with our best team.

“We’re still a few players light but I’ve always believed if we kept grafting as the weeks go by and we kept learning lessons and we got a few players back that we could compete and we could put performances on like that.

“That was a proper London performance today with the way we moved the ball. We knew we couldn’t match it with them in the middle early on, we wanted to move them in the heat and we knew the game would break up a little bit as it did, so it was a great move. There were a few errors in there don’t get me wrong, but the boys nailed the game plan, it’s been a great afternoon.”

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