Hull City 1 Sheffield Wednesday 2: Charlie McNeill's double shows Owls and Tigers on different trajectories

After thumping Plymouth Argyle 4-0 in front of the Sky Sports cameras in their Championship opener on Sunday, the upwardly-mobile Owls made it two wins in four days with a relatively comfortable 2-1 win over Hull City, whose return from two games at the MKM Stadium to start the season is one salvaged stoppage-time draw and now this defeat.

The Tigers that finished seventh under Liam Rosenior who was then sacked a few days later look a long way removed from that, still trying to come to terms with Tim Walter’s style of football.

Life didn’t start so comfortably for Wednesday under Walter’s compatriot Danny Rohl it is sometimes easy to forget, given how well things have gone since the turn of the year.

The German won only one of his first seven games last autumn, the Owls predicament at the foot of the table getting worse before it got better.

They have turned that surge to safety last year into a tidal wave of optimism which crested at Hillsborough on Sunday.

And on a balmy night at the MK Stadium it took less than 45 seconds to increase the buoyancy among travelling Owls fans when a flowing move involving Pol Valentin down the right and a backheel from Michael Smith fell at the feet of Charlie McNeill to drill the ball home from 16 yards.

Hull were not downtrodden for long though, responding on eight minutes when Marvin Mehlem capitalised on a mistake at the back to calmly stroke the ball past Pierce Charles in the Wednesday goal.

But in a madcap opening, the Owls restored the lead when goalkeeper Anthony Racioppi slipped trying to play the ball out in front of his own goal and 20-year-old McNeill - a free transfer signing from Manchester United - had the easiest job in the world to score into an empty net.

How there were no more goals after that is a mystery perhaps best answered by Owls defender Michael Ihiekwe who steered a free header over at one end, and cleared off the line at the other moments later after Mehlem had fired in a half volley from the edge of the box from one of Hull’s more incisive moves.

The Tigers were by no means well-beaten and had their chances but even in these early days, there must be ripples of concern that the good work of the Rosenior era is being undone rather than built on. 

For Wednesday, with their tails up, it might be more a question of how Rohl keeps his squad happy. Marvin Johnson nearly scored a third with a curling effort and was a constant threat down the left side but could be on his way before the transfer deadline on August 30, by which time more should be known about these White Rose rivals.