Doncaster Rovers 4 Hull City 0: Ruthless Rovers teach young Tigers some harsh lessons
Doncaster Rovers played with nous beyond their years, a green Hull City side a naivety befitting theirs as the League Two side recorded an impressive 4-0 win in pre-season.
Where Rovers played a strong side, the Tigers fielded reserves severely depleted by a summer high on sales, low on signings, with Cody Drameh playing no part hours after the former Leeds United defender joined on a free transfer.
And it showed.
Doncaster let their visiors have a lot of ineffectual possession, much of it through goalkeeper Ivor Pandur, and picked their moments to pounce, Kyle Hurst continuing his excellent pre-season with a first-half goal and assist. Owen Bailey added two in the second half from attacks down the right before the team-sheets were ripped up by mass substitutions.
Hurst stole the ball of Andy Smith and dinked over Pandur in the 22nd minute, then picked up a loose Stan Ashbee pass to set up Joe Ironside for a second goal six minutes later.
When Doncaster launched a second rapid counter-attack down the right in a matter of minutes, Bailey did with Jamie Sterry's pull-back what Hurst shoudl have done with Luke Molyneux's burying it.
His second goal came seconds after Joe Ironside headed against the crossbar, stopping to convert a Molyneux cross in the 59th minute.
That prompted 14 substitutions, nine from Hull, with more to come and the more experienced Tigers were more incisive making chances, but no more ruthless when ut came to taking them, whereas Doncaster continued to pose a threat on the counter-attack.
This was far to unbalanced a contest to draw too mny conclusions from, but the home fans will be counting the days until Accrington Stanley's visit for the opening League Two game on August 10.
Doncaster Rovers: Sharman-Lowe (Lawlor HT); Sterry (Nixon 60), Olowu (Williams 74), McGrath, Maxwell (Senior 60); Gibson (Yeboah 60), Bailey (Flint 74), Broadbent; Molyneux (Miller 74), Ironside (Sharp 60), Hurst (Sbarra 60).
Unused substitutes: Jones, Wood.
Hull City: Pandur; R Coyle (L Coyle 60), Smith (Jones 60), Ashbee (McLoughlin 60), Fleming (Jacob 60); Furlong (Seri 60), Simons, Sandat (Slater 60); Hall (Omur 60), Tinsdale (Longman 60), Vaughan (Giles 60).
Unused substitute: Foster.
Referee: T Nield (Huddersfield).