Hull City 2 Ipswich Town 2: Half a performance earns Tigers another point
When Hull City played with intensity against Ipswich Town, they were very good., It was just a pity it took them until the second half.
The Tigers claimed yet another draw, and after the way they played in the first half, they would have been very pleased to take a 2-2.
But had they started the game the way they played after the interval, they might have been celebrating a first win since August.
Booed off at the end of the first half, they were cheered at the full-time whistle.
The Premier League table had this as a match between equals – the Tigers were higher in the standings on goal difference – but Hull showed their fellow newly-promoted side far too much respect.
Ipswich like to see a lot of the ball, Hull are content not too, but they overdid it in the first half in East Yorkshire.
Even with a late mini-rally, Hull only had 30 per cent possession, making 139 passes to Ipswich's 336, and were more than 16 per cent less accurate with them, according to the number-crunchers. But more importantly, the Tractor Boys scored and the Tigers did not. They don't even have a shot on target.
In fairness to Hull, for a while they were able to keep Ipswich at arm's length.
Julio Enciso's shot, saved low down by Konstantinos Tzolakis, and Abdoul Outtara's blocked effort was all they produced for the first 20 minutes, but they were able to keep coming back because there was no threat coming back at them on the counter-attack.
In the 22nd minute, they broke the deadlock.
Ouattara beat Elliot Stroud far too easily and played a nice pass to Florentino Luis, whose emphatic near-post finish had Tzolaskis grasping at thin air.
John Egan lost the ball stepping into midfield just after the half-hour and was fortunate Emersonn's shot was so easy to beat away.
Egan got another lucky escape a minute later when he overran the ball but was rescued first by a Tim Iroegbunam tackle on Enciso, then the goal from the corner that resulted being chalked off for a foul on Oli McBurnie.
It took 36 minutes for Mohamed Belloumi to win a first corner and another for Iroegbunam to have Hull's first shot, but it was wildly off target.
Crucially, though, the half ended only 1-0.
Coach Seregj Jakirovic transformed it by bringing Matt Crooks on for Egan, changing shape to 4-3-3 and presumably peeling the paint off the dressing-room walls with his half-time words.
Suddenly the Tigers were playing with intensity – and effectiveness.
Issa Diopp cut out a Coyle cross after the captain overlapped Belloumi and when the corner was played back to the Algerian his cross hit McBurnie, unsighted by the man jumping across his path, and went wid.
But Hull's reward was coming. In the 58th minute McBurnie played a wonderful pass around the corner to release Iroegbunam on the halfway line, and Hull's only really effective player of the first half smashed the ball into the net.
Coyl half-volleyed wide shortly afterwards and when Belloumi's dribble won a free-kick, McBurnie hit it low and into the bottom corner from inside the D.
But Ipswich did not buckle, Enciso putting them back level when h shrugged off a couple of weak tackles to belt the ball into the top corner from the opposite D.
It made for an exciting finish.
Cho thought h was going to have a chance to win it but in beating his man, the touch allowed Dara O'Shea to get back and clear. A minute later substitute Brook Norton-Cuffy's effort had to be tipped wide by Christian Walton. A Belloumi shot crashed into O'Shea.
But Ipswich had their chances too, former Leeds United and Middlesbrough winger Jack Clark hitting a shot into penalty-area traffic and Enciso putting the loose ball wide.
A Clark free-kick went just wide of the far post without the touch it was looking for, and Daizen Maeda headed a good Enciso cross wide from close in, condemning the game to another Hull draw.
Hull City: Tzolakis; Coyle (Norton-Cuffy 77), Ajayi, Egan (Crooks HT), Mendy, Giles; Iroegbunam (Morita 77), Slater (Gelhardt 90); Belloumi, Stroud (Cho 58); McBurnie.
Unused substitutes: Phillips, McNair, Herrington, Mouzakitis.
Ipswich Town: Walton; Ouattara, Diop, O'Shea, Davis; Palacios, Florentino (Matusiwa 69); Fatawu (Maeda 69), Enciso (Akpom 90+4), Philogene (Clarke 69); Emersonn (Flemming 77).
Unused substitutes: Furlong, Greaves, Nunez, Scherpen.
Referee: T Kirk (Manchester).