Lee Radford frustrated after Hull lose to Catalans Dragons
Last Updated: 15/06/15 3:50pm
Hull coach Lee Radford felt his side paid the price for not being more clinical as they were beaten 20-14 by Catalans Dragons in Perpignan.
The Black and Whites, who had won eight of their previous 10 matches, were far from disgraced at the Stade Gilbert Brutus, but Radford knew what had cost his men.
"It was probably a game that got away from us this evening," he said.
"I felt that we created enough opportunities to come away with the spoils but never capitalised on it. It was our doing and that is really disappointing, it is a long way to come here and get narrowly defeated.
"In the first period we spoke about how clinical and physical we needed to be; I feel that we got the physical, but not the clinical side. Again, when we were chasing the game at the end, we created overlaps and opportunities but we just couldn't take them."
An excellent performance from Mark Minichiello kept Hull in the hunt but in the end they ran out of time.
"He was superb for us tonight," Radford said of the Australian. "Arguably him and Zeb Taia are the two best back-rowers in the competition and hopefully he can continue to produce what he did tonight."
Catalans Dragons coach Laurent Frayssinous enjoyed his side's defensive efforts.
"When you win, you are always happy; tonight I am more happy because we only conceded two tries. Defensively we were pretty good tonight," he said.
"There are some good young French guys who got a good experience tonight, I'm really pleased how they all fought for each other and got the win in a tough game.
"Tony Gigot had a good game for us at centre and I think that Eloi Pelissier played a good game for us off the bench, they both gave us good impact.
"Our forwards laid a good platform for us and our bench created some good opportunities for us to lead by 18-8 at half-time."