Unfortunate old pal's act enables Hull FC to topple Wakefield Trinity

Half-back Connor scored his sixth try of the season after intercepting his former Huddersfield Giants colleague’s pass in Friday’s 40-18 win against Wakefield Trinity.

The main issue, though, was Wakefield led 18-10 at the time and Wood was just 10 metres from his own line when he tried the bizarre play that badly backfired just before the hour mark.

Soon after, Marc Sneyd sniped through, too, and Hull eventually romped home strongly to seal a fourth successive win and move up to second in the Super League table.

Connor told The Yorkshire Post: “He will be fuming with me as we’re good pals. We played at Huddersfield together.

“It was one of those situations where sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t.

“I heard a call on his outside and so I just gambled and went for it (the interception).

“It was at a point in the game where we were on the back foot and I’d like to think it gave everyone a bit of a lift after that and got us on the front foot to take a bit of the pressure off.”

The 22-year-old, who is thriving with Hull since leaving Huddersfield at the end of the season when Wood also departed, maintained it was not him putting on the “call” to try and deceive his former team-mate.

“No, not at all,” he said.

“Sometimes you just have that instinct for it. I’m sure if he’d have dummied he’d have gone through but it paid off.

“It’s a massive win, too. Wakey were pushing for the top four but that’s now pushed us up into second.”

Everyone expected Hull to tire given they had played in sweltering heat to beat Castleford Tigers in the Challenge Cup quarter-final last Sunday – with Wakefield being in action three days earlier.

They went 10-0 up, though, and Connor continued: “After that big win against Cas’ we had a few bodies out there who were a bit tired and obviously a bit slow to start.

“But when we got in our groove we looked on point again.

“I think the energy battle was lost in parts of that but our skill and power down the middle helped us get through it.”

Connor had played the previous four games at half-back in Sneyd’s absence but, with the Lance Todd Trophy winner fit again after injury on Friday, coach Lee Radford retained him and rested prolific Australian Albert Kelly instead.

It was only the third game Kelly had missed since joining from Hull KR over the winter but Connor – who can also play wing, centre or full-back – produced yet another assured display.

It will be intriguing to see if he is retained for their next challenge – a quick reunion with Super League leaders Castleford on Friday as first play second. “It shows the faith Lee Radford has got in me but we have to keep everyone fresh,” offered Connor.

“Alby has played a lot of games where he hasn’t had time to rest and Mini (Mark Minichiello) is the same.

“They had that time to rest on Friday and I’m sure they’ll be ready to go next week.

“It’s at that point where everyone is fresh again now and everyone is fit and I’ve just got to keep fighting. If I am not in then I’ll support the boys but, hopefully, I have done everything to get in that 17.”

Hull ended Castleford’s eight-game winning run by defeating them in the Cup, having also been the last side to beat them in the league in April.

Daryl Powell’s side bounced back from their Cup heartache, though, by winning 23-12 at top-four rivals Leeds on Friday, extending their advantage at the top to seven points.

But Connor said: “We’ve already beaten them twice and we’ll go there all of us confident we should do it again.

“Hopefully, we can put more pressure on them at the top of the table.”

Radford conceded about the interception try: “The rugby gods smiled on us massively there. There was every chance of Ben Jones-Bishop or Mason Caton-Brown going to the other end of the field, so yeah, thank the gods for that.”

He continued: “It was 100 per cent mental. We started really poor in terms of our contact. Poor in terms of our patience but managed to fix that up in the last 20-25 minutes.

“It’s not the first time that we have done that this season. Thankfully, they are a talented enough group to do that within games. I think that was the case here.”