Agar plays down talk of Gleeson’s arrival

Hull coach Richard Agar refused to be drawn on talk that he is set to sign free agent Martin Gleeson after his side bought him some breathing space with a 34-24 win over Bradford.

Agar’s position had been under some threat owing to a run of six defeats from eight going into the game, but his side posted six tries to end a week which has seen Agar hit by a double charge by the Rugby Football League on a high.

Talk then turned to Gleeson, the former England centre, who was released from his contract at Wigan last week after a string of off-field problems.

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He was in the crowd for Hull’s defeat to Castleford last weekend, is a close friend of Hull scrum-half Sean Long and, some reports have suggested he has been offered a deal at the KC Stadium until the end of the season.

Agar, though, refused to say too much about Gleeson, although he did concede something could be in the offing.

“This (Hull) is a pretty good town for rumours. I know he was at the game last week and obviously he’s mates with Sean and is now a free agent, but as of this time, there’s nothing to report on it. When there is, I’m sure we’ll say.

“It’s a hypothetical question at the moment as we’ve not really spoken to him. I’m not quite sure exactly where we sit on the salary cap. I don’t think we’d be a million miles off but there are a lot of things that we’d need to take into consideration before we consider a move.”

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On the field, Hull banished the memories of last weekend’s 20-18 defeat to Castleford, a result which promoted Agar to brand referee James Child as a “disgrace”, thus earning him the RFL charge.

“I thought we had a pretty good performance for most parts,” he said.

“I thought Bradford had been defending really well and in the first half we threw plenty at them, without quite finishing at times.

“In the second half we would have been better advised at times to plough our way down the field and turn the ball over, but we did enough to get a couple of late tries.

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“I think over the 80 minutes we were good enough with the ball and created enough.”

Bradford had led 12-0 early in the piece, but were unable to keep out Hull’s rejuvenated attack, with Tom Briscoe scoring two match-clinching tries late on.