THE best way to sum up Friday night’s experience came from one of the many disappointed fans getting back on the coach, complaining he’d had an awful seat because he could see the pitch.

Trying to take some positives from this match is very difficult but I’ll give it a go.

The pies were very good and the Kingston Press cider turned out to be excellent, even though I did order it in error as I thought it was a bitter. I know now the clue was in the name.

The trip didn’t start well as the coach had to contend with worse-than-usual M60 Friday afternoon traffic but full marks to the Tyrer drivers who added value to the outing with a tour of Salford and Heaton Park to circumvent the problems and get us to the KCOM stadium on time.

We got a police escort in and out, and the coaches can park near the visitors’ turnstiles, which allows easy access to the ground. We shared the North Stand with the Hull City fans, separated by a thin line of stewards and police, which caused problems for those who were near the divide.

Phil Parkinson brought in Jem Karacan and Will Buckley to freshen things up but this went to pieces when David Meyler took Karacan out of the game with a dangerous tackle. The referee waited to see if Jem got up, which he did for a few minutes before hobbling off, before bottling out and issuing only a yellow card.

Then Hull hit us with three goals in the first 30 minutes and again it was game over before we got started. You can drive a bus through the middle of our defence at the moment. The back three are playing too far apart and nobody seems to be assuming the defensive midfield duties in the absence of Josh Vela and Jay Spearing. After that Hull seem to lose interest, which allowed us to keep the score down until their late effort.

There is no doubt we are struggling at this level to adjust to the pace and the higher quality of finishing. These are the things that took us down last time. This season was always going to be tough but we need to sort these things out quickly with the limited resources that we have.