Hull head coach Lee Radford hailed his side's "phenomenal" defence after they responded to back-to-back defeats with a 30-8 victory over Salford Red Devils, while Brian Noble was left disappointed.

Radford was forced to hold a meeting following last weekend's 7-0 home loss to Widnes Vikings, which came on the back of a narrow defeat at Castleford Tigers.

The talks had the desired effect as Hull delivered an excellent defensive performance from the first whistle to the last at the KC Stadium.

The hosts had to defend repeat sets without touching the ball at the start of the match and were penned in for a sustained period in the second half, only to keep Salford out on both occasions.

"I questioned our intensity and commitment last week, and one of the reasons for questioning that was the standards we had set ourselves in pre-season and we fell short of that last week," said Radford.

"There were 21 tackles front up to start the game and then 23 consecutive tackles in the second half - it was nothing short of phenomenal."

Hull were also clinical at the other end, with Jacob Miller and Jamie Shaul crossing to give the home side a 12-4 half-time lead before they pulled away in the second period courtesy of tries from Ben Crooks, Richard Horne and Liam Watts.

Radford admitted the win was just what the Airlie Birds needed ahead of the Challenge Cup tie against the same opposition on Thursday.

He added: "I've just said in there (to the players), 'appreciate why we just got that result'. It was because of the effort we put in there and it's important we replicate that next week.

"We only get one shot at it and it's really important for the club that, at home in a cup fixture, we turn up with the same performance as we have done today."

Opposite number Brian Noble paid tribute to Hull's energy, but conceded Salford failed to deal with the backlash from their recent defeats.

"Hull were really energised, vigorous and ran hard," said Noble, who revealed Andrew Dixon suffered a serious knee injury during the game.

"We knew there was going to be a backlash and we didn't handle it, so that's the disappointing element for me."

The one positive Noble could draw from the evening was that his team had an immediate opportunity to make amends.

"The good thing is we get to come back here in six days," the former Great Britain coach said. "If we do things properly, we'll probably give ourselves more of a chance.

"I can never guarantee the result at a place like this, but I certainly expect a whole lot better than that."

Would have expected 'easthull fc fan' to have posted this first.......

Defence is about attitude and those two defensive efforts showed how far a good attitude can get you. It has to become the norm.

Well from one point of view it couldn't get much worse than last week.
But, hats off, I still absolutely do not think Radford is the man for the job but from all accounts he got things a lot better overall (still puzzled as to why some team members left in but there you go) and players manned up.
I know Salford are still way off in terms of their end product but good defence is as much a match winner as good attack for me and that is what I think we have been lacking.
Get a win next Thursday (I'm coming up..yay) and let's see if we can be more measured overall, no good having good attack to ship points due to stupid penalties and sloppy defence.

If your on about yeamo he has responded better then we could have hoped for he's done extra training not sulked & I thought he had a very good game & grafted with tuson to help miller in defence. Every player put good effort in & got the 2 points we needed against a side that could have quite easily have exploited us after last week, because let's face it confidence in our team must have been low after widnes so fair play to our lads. Just got to be consistent & find that energy they played with & with the returning players available it can only be better all round. Imo.

I actually think our defensive technique has improved significantly this season. 3 men in most tackles and we're putting players on their backs and controlling the ruck. We've given away a lot of penalties in the opening games but as refs settle down these will become less. There is still work to do on our edge defence but hopefully this will be fixed up. In 4 games this season we've held the opposition to 3 tries or less so if we can improve our attack alongside that we'll be doing OK

So we have a 30year professional and international player, staying behind like a naughty little school boy practising his passing......WTF......just get rid. He certainly doesn't need any defending and if our coach believes that this will help him become a better player at this stage, where all f'ck#d.

He got it right as did the players..but I arnt getting carried away until we can back it up week after week, the thing is on here people have said radders isn't the man for the job..& because they've said it they want him to fail...so they are right this is bad on our club, but I suppose that's posters views.

What do you care? You've had enough and not even attending games anymore. Why don;t you go do the washing and ironing and get your wife's breakfast ready?

Yeah he's been at the club since 14 but give up but get rid because an ex fan said so...hush your beak!

Haha

Is that before or after he comes away from been under radfords desk?

Hopefully going forward we don't have to put a performance in like Widnes to get a performance like last night.
Always has been the challenge for any coach at our club.
The decision to drop Arundel before Yeaman & Crooks was baffling.

One swallow doesn't make a summer