Zak Hardaker has admitted some ‘harsh words’ were said in the Hull FC changing room at half-time on Thursday night. The Black and Whites defeated Wakefield Trinity 16-10 at the MKM Stadium, picking up their first home victory of the season.
However, they were made to work for it, trailing 10-0 at the break after what was another first-half performance full of errors. And the team, led by Hardaker and Aidan Sezer, didn’t shy away from that reality, with some honest admissions made after what was a sloppy opening forty minutes.
Those admissions came up trumps in the second half, with Hull scoring three times, firstly through Hardaker, who took the club Player of the Match award for the second successive week, and then Jordan Rapana and Lewis Martin to wipe out Max Jowitt’s try and three goals.
But most importantly, the overall performance was night and day in the second forty, with Hull getting a roll on, raging downfield, and finding some fluency in their game with hard running and a solid kick and chase game.
Opening up on the game, which puts Hull back in the Super League top six positions with two-thirds of the season gone, Hardaker said: “We make it hard for ourselves. For the last three or four weeks now, we’ve been gifting the opposition easy ball and defending our line for large parts of games. We’ve done that again tonight.
“There were some harsh words there at half-time that we needed to fix up and address, and we certainly did that coming out for the second half. It was a good performance in the end.”
Asked what was said at half-time, Hardaker spoke of the need to roll their sleeves up and find the tough traits the team showed earlier in the season. He continued: “It’s a flip of a coin between me and Sezer. We just looked down and out and defeated when it was 4-0, so we just spoke about the belief that we needed and we showed in the early parts of the season. We needed to dig deep tonight in the second half.
“I think we showed that and what a courageous group we can be at times. The second-half performance was pretty good, but there are things to work on from the first half.”
The victory was Hull’s 11th of the season in both competitions and, remarkably, their first at home. They ended a 12-month wait for a victory in West Hull with only a draw to show since they last beat Wigan in July 2024. But for Hardaker, the win was also fitting for Hull forward Brad Fash, whose testimonial was confirmed pre-match.
Asked how good that felt, the Hull full-back said: “Really good. Every time we step on this field, we want to do the city of Hull proud; they turn out in numbers every week, and to finally get a win for them, it’s good.
“Not just that, it was Brad Fash’s 200th tonight so really important for him. Overall, it was a good night.”