On a night where a 123-year record was equalled, seven cards were shown in a chaotic half-hour of action and one side finished with nine men on the field, it is perhaps inevitable that the continuation of Hull’s three-year unbeaten run in the Challenge Cup was relegated to a mere footnote.
Their quest for a third successive cup triumph eventually continued here; in terms of the scoreline and the final result, it was somewhat straightforward despite an admirable effort from Featherstone. Everything else could not have been more surreal. Magic of the cup? At times, this felt like sheer pandemonium.
Perhaps the headline was the 36th-minute try scored by the Featherstone wing, Luke Briscoe, which equalled the sport’s all-time record for scoring 17 tries in consecutive games, set in 1936 by the Leeds great, Eric Harris. It is a phenomenal milestone, and one which deservedly should be recalled after an otherwise-chaotic evening in West Yorkshire.
“He’s absolutely phenomenal,” the Featherstone coach, John Duffy, said of the wing, who could now break the all-time record next weekend when Rovers face Leigh. Featherstone’s focus now turns towards attempting to secure promotion to the Super League via the Qualifiers – and they should take heart from the fact that they will face far worse sides than Hull this summer and yet pushed the reigning holders for periods of this all-action encounter.
But by the time victory had long since been secured courtesy of Bureta Faraimo’s two second-half tries, an entertaining cup tie had descended into farce. In total there were seven cards; three yellows to Featherstone players and three to Hull, before Faraimo’s red card seconds before full-time for an appalling challenge on Shaun Robinson.
It meant Hull ended the game with just nine men – but before those shambolic scenes, the visitors were, in the end, worthy winners. They face a mounting injury crisis before next Sunday’s Magic Weekend date with Hull KR though; they could be without more than a dozen first-team players for that game, including Faraimo, who surely faces a suspension.
Without the first-choice half-back pairing Albert Kelly and Marc Sneyd, their star here was Jake Connor, who scored two of the five first-half tries that put the visitors 30-10 ahead at the break – and though Featherstone fought valiantly thereafter, a comeback never seemed likely.
Briscoe’s historic try was followed by another after the break, but when Connor’s superb looping pass found Faraimo soon after, it was clear there would be only one winner. Soon after his second, though, the rugby took a backseat to the card-laden anarchy of the final quarter. Not that Hull, who will be in Sunday’s quarter-final draw, or Briscoe, who has his place in history, will remember that in a few weeks’ time.
