Unwanted first for Liam Rosenior as Hull City head coach offers no excuses as Connolly absence compounds bad night at Norwich City

David Wagner's Canaries made light of their recent toils at Carrow Road to hit back after Jacob Greaves put the Tigers, in with an outside chance of the top six, ahead from a corner on 14 minutes.

Norwich equalised four minutes later through Kieran Dowell, whose shot from an Onel Hernandez cutback took a big deflection off Greaves before going in, and from then on it was one-way traffic.

Gabriel Sara finally made it 2-1 just before the hour mark with a powerful low drive following another Hernandez assist, and Josh Sargent cracked home his 11th of the season a couple of minutes from time.

It was a night when Hull - who were without Aaron Connolly who remains a doubt for the weekend with a toe/ankle injury - were second best and suffered just their second league defeat since just before the World Cup break.

Rosenior said: "It was a tough night for us. For the first time since I have been here I have to say we were beaten by the better side and Norwich deserved the three points.

"I usually celebrate our goals but I didn't when we went one up because from minute one we were on the back foot against a very good team.

"They may have been on a bad run at home but that doesn't alter the fact that David is a very good manager and he has some very good players to call on. I would certainly expect them to be in the top six.

"We were up against a top side but performance-wise, it was not us - we can do better than that, even though I have no argument about the result.

"We had been on a good run and now it's all about the reaction - the lads have been superb for us since I have been here and the challenge now is to go on another run, starting on Saturday."