Stumbling over line not good enough for Hull City's Curtis Davies

Thousands of Hull City fans had poured on to the KC Stadium pitch the moment referee Michael Oliver had brought an end to proceedings on Tuesday night to confirm an all-Yorkshire Championship play-off final showdown with Sheffield Wednesday.

A flare was let off and amber smoke quickly filled the air along with excited chants about promotion and the prospect of taking on the Owls, but Davies’ stoney expression amid the chaos betrayed his true feelings.

Hull had dodged a bullet and the defender knew it. The Tigers had flirted with the most embarrassing collapse in play-off history before finally emerging from a second leg dominated by the Rams with a 3-2 aggregate win.

“We stumbled over the line, which you never want to do,” admitted Davies when speaking to The Yorkshire Post in the wake of Derby’s 2-0 triumph at the KC Stadium.

“We wanted to try and put on a show. We knew Derby would come out and go for it but we couldn’t deal with it. It was a cup game and we have eventually seen ourselves through. But, if you had have seen my face as I was coming off the pitch at the end, it was far from a happy one.

“Ultimately, we have lost a game of football in a very bad manner and we need to be much better than that if we are going to win the play-offs.”

After carving out a three-goal first-leg lead courtesy of a polished display at the Ipro the previous Saturday, City’s place in world football’s richest game seemed assured.

Derby, though, had other ideas and an early strike by Johnny Russell plus an Andrew Robertson own goal soon had the alarm bells ringing all around the KC.

No team in play-off history had ever surrendered a three-goal first leg deficit but, with just 36 minutes on the clock, the Tigers looked a good bet to do just that.

Craig Bryson should have levelled the tie on aggregate shortly after half-time but made a hash of his finish and, in the end, this was the let-off that proved crucial for the Tigers.