Hull FC coach John Cartwright adamant no malicious intent to Cade Cust red-card tackle in Hull KR loss

John Cartwright was adamant there was no malicious intent from Cade Cust after his decisive red-card challenge in Hull FC's derby defeat to Hull KR.

The defining moment in the top-of-the-table contest between the crosstown rivals at the MKM Stadium was in the 16th minute, when Cust saw red for a rash shoulder barge to the head of Arthur Mourgue.

Cust's dismissal came when he tried to latch on to Aidan Sezer's grubber kick to the line only to flatten the defending Mourgue with a full-force hit to the Frenchman's face by the posts.

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"I haven't had a good view of it so I don't really want to comment other than to say there was no malicious intent," Black and Whites head coach Cartwright said.

"If you touch the head, the mitigating circumstances don't seem to matter that much. But I thought it was a bloke chasing a kick very hard, couldn't pull out of the collision and the collision happened."

Rovers, 4-0 in front at the time thanks to Oliver Gildart's try, built a 16-4 half-time lead as Peta Hiku and Mourgue, having passed a head injury assessment, touched down, but the hosts swiftly hit back.

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Jack Ashworth's first-half score was added to by tries from Tom Briscoe and Jordan Rapana to close the deficit to two points and give a sell-out 21,000 crowd - Hull FC's highest in 16 years - fresh hope.

But, as the atmosphere reached fever pitch, James Batchelor crossed with a quarter of an hour left before Jared Waerea-Hargreaves bagged a try moments later to seal a 28-14 win for the Robins.

"It's nearly impossible to win with 12 men on 13," Cartwright added. "You could feel the air come out of the stadium when it happened. But just because we had 12 men, it doesn't mean we're not going to try and fight.

"It was one of the better performances I've seen from any side I've been involved with. The confidence we'll get out of that will be enormous."

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Hull KR head coach Willie Peters breathed a sigh of relief after the Super League leaders withstood a second-half fightback to claim derby bragging rights - and top spot in the table over the Easter weekend.

Less than a fortnight after beating Hull FC in the Challenge Cup quarter-final, Rovers made it a double on their rivals' own patch as they bounced back from last week's first loss of the season to Wigan.

"Hull are a very tough team when they've got 13 players, but they found another leg when they had 12," Peters said. "They pushed us right to the end and that could have gone either way.

"We didn't really handle the 12 men the way we should. I thought we lost our way a little bit. I'm just happy that last 20 minutes, we found something when we needed to.

"People say you get a lot of learnings when you lose, but that's a game we can get a lot of learnings from. We got the two points which is what we came here to do."

He continued: "We're not getting carried away, we know where we're at and where we've got to get to - we've still got a way to go."

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