John Cartwright has reflected on a disappointing defeat for his side at the MKM Stadium on Friday evening.
The Black & Whites fell to their first home defeat in 2026, as the newly promoted side ran out 17-16 winners in West Hull.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, Cartwright said: “It was a really disappointing result. It was a game we were confident of winning. They were camped down on our line but we came out of that period pretty well and we controlled that period of the first half well.
“We should have scored more points, especially in the last five minutes. We were camped on their try line and we had a couple of ordinary sets. We could have come into the sheds 10 or so points in front. We didn’t take our chances there.
“And in the second half there were just too many errors, first tackle errors inside your own ten – it’s just really tough to be defend that, and especially when you’re doing it with 12 men.”
On the Knights, he continued: “They remind me a bit of where we were this time last year. They are a bit of an unknown and they’ve got some good players scattered across the field and they’re playing for each other.
“I know they’d be tough – they were smarting from last week’s loss and they would have fancied themselves coming here given our form hasn’t been all that flash. We knew it would be a tough game and it was.”
“They just played more consistent footy. I thought they handled a lot of stuff, especially defensively – we were pretty good at keeping them in their own half but we just kept on giving them opportunity with the ball. We lacked polish.”
Hull’s numbers depleted throughout the contest, losing Aidan Sezer, Jed Cartwright and Harvey Barron to injury, with Cartwright explaining: “Aidan got a poke in the eye. He had blurred vision. He got to a point where he was comfortable to go back on but then at half-time, it just went backwards. It was for his own health why we brought him off.
“I’m not right across the injuries at the moment, but it’s Harvey’s ankle – I believe. He was hobbling pretty bad. Jed felt a hammy tweak. I haven’t got to the bottom of the injuries yet – I’ll go see the medical staff when we’ve finished. It’s the same for Cade Cust.
“It’s a short six day turnaround now (until the Wakefield Trinity game on Thursday). They will all be doubts for next week.”
On the return of Jake Arthur and John Asiata, Cartwright continued: “Losing his (Jake) half-back was probably did it for him. I thought we looked really dangerous at times, but it was hard on Jake.
“He had a bit of a tough off-season himself with injury and he had to go on and be playmaker when Aidan came off. He tried hard – there’s no doubt about that – and he’ll be better for the run
“Johnny had done enough to play but we thought just give him the one stint of thirty minutes in the second half. A couple of times at the end he nearly got us home there. A lot of the good stuff at the end where we did look a bit menacing was on the back of him.”
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