Sunderland 7 – 22 Hull: “Tons of positives” in Rugby team’s opening defeat

The first game of the season saw Sunderland’s newly promoted team fall short against Hull at their home Ashbrooke.

Sunderland was looking to retain last season’s success whilst also sporting nine new players to complement their squad.

However, within minutes Hull’s Will Cowley scored the first try but Sam Burell was unable to convert.

After a successful lineout for Hull with Rowan Roberts catching, Lewis Gould scored another try for Hull followed by another unsuccessful conversion from Burell.

Despite these two tries from the opposition, Sunderland rallied and showed great spirit to keep their attacking momentum in play.

The pressure Sunderland put on Hull came through when Michael Precious scored on the back of a powerful maul after a successful lineout on the left side of the pitch. Zach Campbell followed this with a strong conversion meaning Hull narrowly had the lead at half time 7-10.

Sunderland came out after half time looking strong, fighting for their comeback with fast pace moving the ball through their hands resulting in quick phases.

Sunderland continued to press their opposition with a near repeat of their previous try from before half time but unfortunately lost the ball to Hull in a ruck metres from the tryline.

Following another successful lineout for Hull, Cameron Shaw was able to score for Hull followed by yet another unsuccessful conversion from Burell.

A great run from Hull’s Will Dearing meant that Cowley could go onto to score a try for the team and finally Hull had a successful conversion from Burell.

Two minutes to full time, Hull’s Gould received a yellow for repeated penalties. The full-time score was 22 Hull – 7 Sunderland. There were some promising signs from Sunderland with strong tackles and fast movement throughout the game.

Sunderland’s Captain Ethan Sutcliffe said in a statement that there were “tons of positives from the game, the set pieces worked well and we all stuck together as a team, only having four training sessions it was always going to be a struggle but we stuck together, which is what we want and played good rugby.”

When asked about the change in levels of competition in the new league Ethan went on to say: “It was an absolutely huge step up in competition, Hull’s defence was tough and hard to break down, they were an incredibly well drilled team and structure looked slick which is something that we didn’t really struggle against last year.”

Before next week’s match Sunderland are “going to recoup as a team and train through the week, mainly focusing on our own structure. [The] penalties killed us so we will be looking at cutting them out of our game.”