Hull coach Lee Radford has revealed he was asked to leave the dressing room by his own players after a 46-6 defeat at Widnes.
Widnes consolidated top spot in Super League with a nine-try rout of shell-shocked Hull FC at the Select Security Stadium on Thursday.
It was the Black and Whites' third successive defeat after a promising win against Catalans in the opening game of the season, and an embarrassed Radford afterwards admitted he had left the players to conduct their own inquest.
"We simply capitulated and it's my responsibility as a coach," he said in the post-match press conference.
"I can only apologise to our supporters who came all this way and sang all the way through. It's also my job to try fix it up and that's what I'll try to do. As a rugby player, you're told to compete and that stopped being a competition after 20 minutes.
"It's the most difficult defeat to take for sure. To have no fightback was embarrassing and the staff have just been kicked out of the changing room by the players.
"I've no idea why they asked us to leave, they just asked us to - it's never happened in my career before."
Radford had earlier told Sky Sports: "How we capitulated like that is beyond me. I am a proud man and I am very embarrassed with what has gone on.
"Our confidence seems shot and we look a shell of the side that started the season - that is mental toughness. Collectively, to collapse like that is a real worry. I'm good for the fight - that is one thing I can do - fight.
"We will go to work tomorrow and look to correct this -and if I can't, then somebody else will."
Fighting spirit
Widnes coach Denis Betts was proud of the way his side handled the pressure Hull exerted on them in the opening quarter. Hull went 6-0 up in the seventh minute and had three tries disallowed and the Vikings hit back to take control.
"Hull FC came after us early and we thought they would try and kill us early with their size and their strength - they were pumping holes into us and it was hard for us to handle them," said Betts.
"Our bench was great, Macgraff Leuluai, Alex Gerrard and Aaron Heremaia came on and gave us a real boost. We just went about our business and used what we had done in the week to great effect.
"We knew it would take some time and we knew we had to stay in the fight - we did that and we came through the other side with flying colours."