Liam Rosenior hails ‘fantastic finishing’ of Aaron Connolly after late brace

Liam Rosenior praised the “fantastic finishing” of Aaron Connolly after his late double saw Hull come from behind to defeat 10-man Blackburn 2-1.

Hull were in control from the outset and tightened their grip when Harry Pickering received a 17th-minute red card for bringing Liam Delap down when clean through.

But the resilient Blackburn team took the lead through Sam Gallagher’s emphatic finish in the 74th minute, setting up a frantic ending to the game, which saw substitute Connolly give the Tigers a taste of the clinical finishing they can expect more of after signing the striker on a permenant basis this summer.

He equalised with a first-time volley in the 81st minute before again timing his run to perfection with two minutes remaining to stroke home a winner and give Hull a first league win at Ewood Park since February 2016.

Rosenior was delighted with all his attackers, and how Connolly stretched a tiring Blackburn defence.

The Hull boss said: “Aaron’s finish, he’s got that ability in training. He just takes things really early. He took both goals so early so the goalkeeper couldn’t get set and now he’s got three in two.

“We wore them down. If you watch the game back, we made, I don’t know how many, 600 passes. It’s hard with 10 men to defend against 600 passes. It’s no coincidence we score the two goals in the last 10 minutes, because the players stuck to the plan.

“Aaron gets the plaudits, two fantastic finishes. I’ve got Liam Delap who I thought played really well, he can hold the ball up, he can twist, turn and combine. I’ve got Oscar (Estupinan) who is your typical target man, good technically, can hold the ball up.

“Why I really like Aaron in this group is because he stretches teams, runs in behind. That’s what the two goals come from and all of a sudden, Blackburn were used to having Liam stuck in front of them and then you’ve got Aaron on running in behind them and it took them by surprise. Fortunately for us, it worked.”

Jon Dahl Tomasson was pleased with Blackburn’s effort, despite seeing their unbeaten start to the season end.

They could have been celebrating a famous victory only for Niall Ennis to strike a post and see a header cleared off the line by Lewie Coyle, in between Matt Ingram saving from Gallagher, all whilst the score was 1-1.

He said: “Extremely disappointed to lose the game. I don’t think we deserved it actually. We can’t ask more from our players, playing with 10 men for more than 80 minutes. Incredible effort.

“We scored a great goal, but conceded two unnecessary goals, straight passes. But just before they scored the second, we had one, two, three chances. The ball was dancing on the line of the opponent.

“It’s always good to see when you lose the game – I hate losing – but when you lose a game and you go off the pitch, and you hear the fans cheering, then you have done something really, really good as a team.

“We can’t expect more playing 80 minutes with 10 men but we created chances even with 10 men, so I think actually we deserved more.

“I think today was a brilliant effort. You can see a team who’s fighting for each other. Great spirit, playing good football, and creating big chances.”