Birthday boy Connolly bags brace as Tigers maul QPR in first home win for Rosenior

Pictures courtesy of Hull City

Hull City 3 - 0 Queens Park Rangers

Sky Bet Championship

MKM Stadium

Attendance: 16,418

By Sam Hawcroft, Hull City Correspondent

Birthday boy Aaron Connolly bagged a brace and sealed a long-overdue victory for City that narrowed the gap between them and their fellow midtable opponents.

The law of averages would surely state that, at some point, City would register a home win, even if it would be a fluke or by a less-than-convincing margin.

This was emphatically neither – it was the Big Win that Tigers fans always hoped would come eventually, and at long, long last, the bumper home crowd – above 16,000 again today – were rewarded for their loyalty and persistence.

Speaking of loyalty and persistence, club legend Andy Dawson was officially inducted into City’s Hall of Fame before the Tigers began their blistering start against a QPR side just four points above them and without a win since mid-December.

As early as the second minute, Callum Elder flung in a cross from the left that was well claimed by keeper Seny Dieng.

After a few more minutes of good pressure, Cyrus Christie, on the right, latched on to a long ball from Matt Ingram and found Ozan Tufan in the area, but he was closed down before being able to get his feet under it.

In the ninth minute, Aaron Connolly, on just his second start for the Tigers – and on his 23rd birthday – did really well to hold up the ball, feint past his marker and shoot past Dieng from about 25 yards out, but watched in frustration as the ball just drifted wide of the right post.

He didn’t stay frustrated for long, though. Just a minute later he was on the scoresheet with his first Tigers goal – putting City ahead in a home game for just the third time this season.

Christie had powered into the box, standing up to his markers before cutting it back to an unmarked Connolly a yard or so behind the penalty spot. He seemed to have about a week to tee up the ball and wham it past Dieng, right in front of the fans going ballistic in the North Stand.

A few minutes later, a long-range effort from Docherty went just over – a clever touch from Jean Michael Seri in the centre was key to the move, just nudging the ball into Elder’s path.

In the 17th minute an overhit pass by Tufan forced Oscar to slide in vain towards the byline. But City just kept on pressing, and the home stands responded, chanting back and forth in a manner usually reserved for being 3-0 up. There was a confidence, even a swagger about City, that had not seen at home for some time, and it was hugely inspired by the nonchalant Seri.

There was the slightest heart-in-mouth moment when Ingram was forced to leap high to clutch a looping header from Osman Kakay after 20 minutes. QPR won their first corner towards the half-hour, which prompted a brief spell of pressure from the visitors – but to a man, the Tigers blocked and cleared well.

A free kick by Ilias Chair was tipped over by Ingram, before City went on the attack again. Christie’s ball into the box was batted away by Dieng before Oscar could get a touch, and the ball was desperately hacked away.

With five minutes to go of the half, Connolly took a knock in a collision with a QPR defender, and for a few worrying moments as the young Irishman hobbled around, clutching his thigh, Tigers fans must have been thinking, “Oh no – not another one!” But he soon appeared to have run it off. Phew.

There was then a lengthy delay for treatment to be given to Kenneth Paal, who went down again moments after re-entering the field, which did not go down well with the unsympathetic City fans breathing down his neck in the East Stand. Paal was eventually replaced by Jake Clarke-Salter seconds before the whistle went.

It was a far quieter start to the second half for City but, nevertheless, there wasn’t much to trouble Ingram with until the 55th minute, when Alfie Jones had to boot away a likely goalbound effort from Sinclair Armstrong.

This precipitated the first real spell of pressure from QPR, who, given City’s slender lead, were sensing that all was most certainly not lost for them. The Tigers needed to put this game out of reach – and soon.

And in the 62nd minute, they did – with a little help from QPR’s Rob Dickie, who was the unfortunate player forced to deflect into his own net from Tufan’s shot.

Just two minutes later, the game was definitely beyond QPR as Connolly got his second, latching on to a through ball from Seri and coolly slotting it past Dieng – unleashing a jubilant round of “Mauled by the Tigers” from all corners of the stadium. The emotion, the relief, the joy – it was palpable. How long City fans had waited for something like this on their home turf!

From then on, with the game long up, City continued to boss the game. Liam Rosenior made a couple of substitutes on 75 minutes – Ryan Woods and Ryan Longman on for Tufan and Seri.

Connolly then left the field in the 83rd minute, replaced by Lewie Coyle, and he received one of the most rousing standing ovations seen at the MKM in some time.

It was agonisingly close to 4-0 a couple of minutes later when Greg Docherty nodded towards the keeper at the left post, but Dieng clung on to it.

The “Olés” were coming out as City knocked the ball around in the last ten minutes, and when the final whistle blew, the strains of Andy Williams’s Can’t Help Falling in Love with You rang around the stadium as fans stayed back to applaud the players. That's something else we've not heard since October. Let’s hope that it’s not three months before we hear it again…