Hull FC 18-54 Salford: Red Devils slam Hull

Match stats: Hull 18-54 Salford

Hull tries: Michaels (5,48), Shaul (44)
Conversions/penalties: Sneyd (5,9), Connor (44) 

Salford tries: Lui (12), Johnson (21,36), Kopczak (26,31), Sa'u (33), Carney (39), Dobson (64), Griffin (72), Murdoch-Masila (78)
Conversions/penalties: Dobson (12,26,64), O'Brien (31,69,72,78) 

Match report

Little-fancied Salford are confirmed as the nearest challengers to surprise Betfred Super League leaders Castleford after blitzing Hull 54-18 at the KCOM Stadium.

The Red Devils ran in 10 tries, seven of them in a near-faultless first half, to cruise to a fourth successive win that lifts them up to second place in the table.

It was easily Salford's biggest Super League win over Hull, who had two men sent to the sin-bin during a horror show that brought their own unbeaten five-match run to an abrupt end.

Already without reigning Man of Steel Danny Houghton and leading tryscorer Albert Kelly, Hull suffered two further body blows before kick-off with the withdrawal of skipper Gareth Ellis and England prop Scott Taylor through injury.

Yet there was little hint of the devastation to come as Hull, led by Australian forward Mark Minichiello, made a bright start and raced into an 8-0 lead inside eight minutes.

Winger Steve Michaels grabbed the first try of the game after Mahe Fonua palmed down a kick from Marc Sneyd, who added the conversion and kicked a penalty - but from then on it was largely one-way traffic up to half-time.

Stand-off Robert Lui sparked the rout, jinking his way through a leaden-footed defence on 11 minutes before helping spread the ball wide for winger Greg Johnson to score the first of his two tries.

Wales prop Craig Kopczak - whose introduction from the bench played a key role in his side's win over St Helens a week earlier - repeated his super-sub heroics, crashing over for two tries in five minutes as Salford established a grip on the game.

After initially demonstrating a preference to attack Hull's left flank, the Red Devils showed their threat on the other wing as scrum-half Michael Dobson worked centre Junior Sa'u over at the corner.

The Black and Whites were in disarray at that stage and it got worse for them when Sneyd was sin-binned six minutes before half-time for a professional foul and Salford twice made the extra man count by creating the space for both Johnson and Justin Carney to add to their growing try tally.

Trailing 34-8 at the break, Hull were still down to 12 men when full-back Jamie Shaul opened the scoring in the second half and hopes flickered when Michaels then gathered Jake Connor's kick to the corner to notch his second try.

But the fightback was short-lived as Salford coach Ian Watson sent on Todd Carney to add even more potency to their varied attack and skipper Dobson made sure of the win when he took Lui's pass to slip through a gap in the Hull defence.

The visitors were actually down to 12 at that stage with Justin Carney in the sin-bin following a team warning while Shaul became the third player to be shown a yellow card by referee Gareth Hewer on 67 minutes and that enabled Gareth O'Brien to stretch his side's lead with a penalty.

Salford turned the screw in the closing stages, with further tries through forwards George Griffin, which earned him family bragging rights over older brother Josh, the Hull centre who moved from Salford at the end of last season, and Ben Murdoch-Masila.

Match reaction

Salford coach Ian Watson: "We were good in parts. We weren't too happy with our defence at certain points.

"We weren't as good as we had been defensively and it's something we need to look at because we pride on ourselves on our defence to make sure we are a top team.

"Our attack was great, once we got into a groove, we didn't feel there was any problems. We got our continuity back and we played really well, which was great to see. There was some great stuff with ball in hand."

Hull coach Lee Radford: "It's obviously hugely disappointing.

"For five minutes in the first half I thought we responded to how we defended last week but then for the following 35 we rolled back into our insecure shell where we looked like we could be broken at any period.

"It hurts. I'm struggling to find any positives. It was a really poor performance and one we will have to address.

"The players who were out were replaced with good players, that's 100 per cent not an excuse. We had a good enough 17 out there to get a result. We can't rely on blokes coming back in to start playing well.

"We've got to look at why the collapse was there after going 8-0 ahead and we'll look to correct that this week.

"The world doesn't stop turning, we've just got to make sure we get a response."