Hull City 3 Sheffield Wednesday 1: Vital points for Tigers, but pride belongs to beaten Owls
Apart from a 15-minute spell when they turned up the heat at the start of the second half, Hull City were fairly average, Sheffield Wednesday absolutely brimming with spirit. And still Hull won comfortably.
Kneecapped again and again this season by the fall-out from Dejphon Chansiri's mismanagement, by the Football League, by bad luck and by injuries, the Owls keep coming back for more. But the brutal truth is that the husk of a football team left behind is just not good enough.
Once Hull got out of the low gears, their win was never in doubt, 3-1 the final scoreline.
But whilst the points stayed in East Yorkshire, there was pride to take back South.
The Owls switched off for Hull's first, scored their second and turned the ball over for the third.
A team with genuine play-off pretentions could not pass up the opportunity. Hull had already dropped two points at Hillsborough on Boxing Day and Watford are now the only Championship team not to beat the Owls this season.
Partly because of that Wednesday spirit, partly because of their own shortcomings, it was harder work than it might have been, but they avoided that ignominy.
On the terraces and on the field, Sheffield Wednesday showed oodles of spirit but unfortunately in the case of the latter, it just highlighted how short they are.
It was a far from impressive first-half performance by the play-off-chasing hosts but their goals could not have been timed better to inflict maximum damage on their already-relegated opponents.
The game's first chance of not came from a Wednesday error, 12 minutes in, as Liam Millar caught Sean Fusire on the ball deep in the right-back position. Millar found Oli McBurnie but Pierce Charles, who had earlier Cruyff-turned past the striker's sliding challenge, saved from him.
Whilst Hull were doing plenty of their attacking through Millar, the Owls were trying to release Svante Ingelsson running from deep into the inside-left channel. A Liam Palmer ball forward nearly did that in the 17th minute but Ivor Pandur collecting from just inside his area.
The Owls took the lead in the 23rd minute when a ball bounced off Regan Slater in a tight area and Semi Ajayi brought Jamal Lowe down.
Hull never got Ingelsson's free-kick clear and in amongst the penalty-area ugliness, Lowe pocked home his fifth goal of the season.
It seemed to provoke the hosts, and they were level within a minute, Matt Crooks sweeping a low Kyle Joseph ball into the net.
But the Tigers did not kick on and the Owls did not crumble, the away end voicing its defiance, the players demonstrating it.
Just as it looked like the sides would go in level at the break, though, Dominic Iorfa put through his own net.
Lowe had curled a shot wide, Jarvis Thornton forced a low stretching save and McBurnie just failed to stretch to a low Millar ball in when Hull won a free-kick out on the right with the half just about to come to a close.
With Regan Slater off with a worrying-looking injury, Paddy McNair came across from his emergency left-back spot to take it, and although McBurnie missed his delivery, Iorfa, leaning back, guided it into the net.
There was more get-up-and-go about Hull in the first 15 minutes after the break, and it allowed them to get the job done.
McBurnie was not being flash when he backheeled Joseph's 58th-minute pass at goal - with his back to it, it was all he could do. Fortunately for Wednesday, Liam Palmer was behind him too.
Hull's third goal was exquisite from their perspective, dismal from the visitors, cut to ribbons when Taya Adaramole turned the ball over running towards the halfway line. Joseph exchanged passes with McBurnie and finished precisely.
With the clock about to tick over to 58 minutes, it was game over.
Joe Gelhardt held off his man but only put his shot wide.
Gabriel Otegbayo's interception, hurting himself in the process, to stop McBunine converting a Cody Drameh cross showed a team playing for pride and fighting to keep their heads above water. Charles saved close in from McBunie after he robbed Fusire.
"Wednesday are massive everywhere we go," sang the away end on an incessant loop, twirling shirts and scarves above their heads as the game was broken up by a succession of substitutions all about game management and very little to do with a game dawdling towards its inevitable conclusion.
Charles' 87th-minute save from Mohamed Belloumi kept it to three but the numbers hardly mattered. Both sides had got what they needed - Hull the points, Wednesday pride and precious little else, unfortunately. But it does count for an awful lot.
Hull City: Pandur; Drameh, Ajayi, Egan, McNair; Slater (Lundstram 30), Crooks (Dowell 80); Joseph (Belloumi 80), Gelhardt (Koumas 69), Millar (Hadziahmetovic 69); McBurnie.
Unused substitutes: Coyle, Phillips, Collyer, McCarthy.
Sheffield Wednesday: Charles; Fusire, Iorfa (McGhee 85), Otegbayo, Palmer, Adaramola (M Lowe 63); Thornton (McNeill 63), Ingelsson (Chalobah 85); Heskey, J Lowe (Ndala 73); Yates.
Unused substitutes: Stretch, Ugbo, Nakamba, Grainger.
Referee: D Whitestone (Northampton).