High praise for Greg Docherty in the wake of Hull City's Papa John's Trophy loss to Lincoln City

The Tigers head coach was naturally disappointed to see his side miss out on a place in the competition's last-four following their penalty shoot-out loss at a soaking wet KCOM Stadium.

But, the Northern Irishman does not feel that his players served up a particularly poor showing on the night, and was enthused by the efforts of ex-Rangers midfielder Docherty, scorer of the 60th-minute equaliser which cancelled out Harry Anderson's early opener for the Imps.

"I'm not pleased to go out of the Trophy, obviously we wanted to go as far as we could and try and go all the way, but it wasn't to be," McCann reflected.

"I thought performance-wise, we were good. There were some big performances out there, particularly Greg Docherty - I thought he was immense.

"It was a really good goal from Doc. We spoke to him at half-time about travelling a bit more with the ball and getting people one-versus-one because he is powerful and he is quick.

"I'm really pleased with him and it's nice to see him get another goal. The calmness in the finish was pleasing, on his left foot as well

"He's a machine, the lad can just run and run and run. It's phenomenal the statistics, the ground that him and George Honeyman cover each week - 12 to 13km per game. Both of them are unbelievable in terms of what they bring in energy and legs every single week and Doc's performance was of a very high standard again."

One aspect of Hull's performance that did frustrate McCann was the slack defensive work which made it all too easy for Imps midfielder Anderson to break the deadlock after just seven minutes.

Tigers centre-half Reece Burke appeared to switch off, leaving the Lincoln man with the simple task of sweeping the ball home from Anthony Scully's low right-wing cross.

"It was poor defending from us," the Tigers chief added.

"It's disappointing that we didn't see the danger and stifle it. A man is free in our box and that's something that we need to learn from and get better.

"Defensively we've been really good this season, but one lapse in concentration has cost us and put them 1-0 up. That gives us a bit of a mountain to climb to try and get back into the game."

"I think we should have won it in the 90 minutes given the context of the game and given the way we played. I thought we were good, but it just didn't drop for us. I thought Keane was going to win it for us in the last seconds but the ball looks like it has gone under his foot. Maybe the pitch has got something to do with it because he would usually stick that away.

"It's just frustrating to go out. Penalties are a bit of a lottery and it wasn't to be so we have to turn our focus to the league on Saturday."

Hull, who currently sit top of the League One standings, return to action this weekend when they visit struggling Burton Albion.