As a neutral, I really don't see the 'better team lost' argument; Saints weren't at their best, but they are very entertaining and play some great rugby. Hull, for my money, decided to get down and dirty for this one - some of which worked, as I thought they did a great job of negating Barba's threat, but it backfired - and discipline ended up costing them.

Two fine refereeing performances in the big matches this weekend - hats off to Mr Hicks and Mr Thaler.

That was partly ferres excuse last year, the problem with that, and this was that houghton was in the process of unscrewing his noggin with both arms wrapped around, regardless of whoever was on his back, he wasn't making room for the tacklers head.

I suspect the disciplinary will pick that up and if charged a 2 match ban likely.

Maybe. He wouldn't be playing this week anyway.

Spot on this imo

Hull came with a game plan and credit to them executed it well and very nearly came away with the win. Saints created a lot of chances and didn't take them, whereas Hull probably had 5 scoring chances all game and took 4 of them and in cup rugby that is what you need to do.

Saints were perhaps a bit fortunate to hang on and win, but I think Hull's indiscipline was the major deciding factor in us winning the game

It did look a bad one at the time, I bet there are loads of minor knocks and bruises reported this morning from both sets of players. It was a right ding dong of a cup game yesterday always the result in doubt until the final minute. Both sets of players gave it there all, at one point I did think it was going to be a draw after 80 mins.

We executed it well to a degree, but we invited trouble on ourselves far too often. Even before any of the yellows we had the kick out on the full, the failed short kick off and our completion rate after 15 minutes was around 25%. Our kicking game was pretty terrible throughout. In terms of sheer guts and never say die attitude it was as good as you are ever likely to see. But execution wise we got lots of things wrong.

Saints can play better than that but we have more in us too, especially if we get Sneyd and a couple of others back. A playoff match between the two sides could be an all time classic.

I think what we were seeing was 2 teams with different contrasting styles, Hull with a forward dominating game using power plays to create scoring chances, Saints with a more mobile pack with a lot of passing plays to open up gaps.

Its interesting on some of the comments from neutrals, those fans from teams who play a similar style to Hull think Hull were the better team, those fans from teams who play a similar style to Saints think Saints were the better team.

In my opinion it was the case that Hull put more effort into the game, on performance potential Saints played a 7 out of 10 and Hull played a 8 out of 10. Hull just gave too many penalties away and you just can't back chat to Thaler these days which happened on 2 occasions.

I think that's a fair assessment.

With regard to Mr Thaler's attitude to backchat - I hope this signals a new approach that all referees will adopt.

Don't agree and I rate Thaler.

Houghton's sin binning was marginal and Thaler could have let it go as a penalty and shown a bit of discretion. By wanting to be overly tough and zealous he chose to send him off and lets be right here plenty of those get nothing more than a penalty.

By doing this he gave himself no options when it came to Washbrook's far more obvious sending off. This meant the ref as ever in the modern game made himself the centre of attention because imo far to many of them believe themselves to be the stars of the game. It went from a punishment to a certain game changer giving Saints a totally undeserved advantage.

It was poor reffing in my opinion and ruined what could have been one of the great game.Also I on't think Hull did come to get 'down and dirty, certainly no more that Saints did, think you've been suckered on that one.

What was the second yellow actually for, I missed that?

Said a lot when Connor having just turned the ball over tried to pick a fight and antagonise Lomax with a minute on the clock. Get your priorities in order.

Washbrook put his knee into LMS, wasn’t particularly bad but completely idiotic and apparently he did the same against Featherstone.

Ah right, thanks for confirming!

Be interesting to see what comes on the back of that then.

There was a bit of an altercation on the floor between Fash and LMS, it was all a bit of nothing but I actually thought LMS cuffed Fash round the back of the head a couple of times and that Fash didn't do very much wrong, although it seemed like the penalty was going to go to against Fash.

Anyway, as LMS went to get to his feet Washbrook pushed his knee into his face. It was soft as you like, it was never going to cause any damage, but it was dumb and totally needless. No argument from with that yellow.

yeah it was going to be for brad fash using his head in teh tackle, needlessly.