Radford: We were second best

Hull head coach Lee Radford admits his side were second best at St Helens on Friday as the home side recorded a deserved 19-12 victory.

The result is a blow to Hull’s hopes of finishing in the top two, but Radford says his team didn’t reach the levels he expects of them.

“It is difficult to win game when you are second best in energy and execution departments,” he said.

“I’ve not been in too many games where you are second best in those departments and you win the game.

“If we would have won the game tonight it would have been like us doing a bank job on them, without a balaclava. It was down to mindset.

“We spoke about being a threat and errors occurred and we spent an awful lot of time on our try line.

“The only plus for us is what we did on our goal-line defense. Everything else was bang average.

“The heavens opening in St Helens didn’t help, but we stuck to the plan but didn’t execute well at all.”