Boss Jim Magilton hailed Franny Jeffers's full debut performance as “outstanding” as the Blues thrashed Hull City 5-2 at the KC Stadium. Jeffers scored the first and had a hand in the second and third as Town well and truly tamed the Tigers.

Magilton said: "Franny was outstanding and a real threat. He will always score goals at this level.

"I was absolutely delighted with his performance. He was the outstanding individual for us and has real quality.

"We are always on the look-out for quality and we have been lucky that Blackburn have been doing so well because Franny found himself fifth striker there.

"He gets one chance in this game and takes it - and that's the difference. We felt like he could give us something extra and are fortunate to have him.

"To score five goals away from home was fantastic. The first 20 minutes we were on the back foot and Hull deserved to go in front - I was not particularly happy with the first half performance, even though we were winning.

"There were good performances all through the side. Alan Lee put in another great shift for us, Danny Haynes came on and scored a terrific goal and his pace caused them problems.

"It was a great night's work but we've now got to build on that - tonight was a game to be dogged but we felt we could isolate their centre-halves.

"They have worked really hard lately to turn things around and tonight they have transferred the football I have seen on the training ground into a performance and we now have to build on that and look forward to Saturday and Southend."

Hull boss Phil Brown felt his players were affected by the relegation battle they find themselves in: "We were not strong enough mentally or physically. It was the first time I have seen a little bit of pressure getting to the players. It's my responsibility to take the pressure off them.

“We scored a good goal and then we gifted them two goals and we've got a mountain to climb after that.

"But it isn't over by a long way. We've slipped into the bottom three but maybe that has given us a kick up the backside for Saturday. We are limited to who we can select and hopefully we can get that right.

"We'll get on the training ground on Thursday and Friday and hopefully we can get a team who can do well against Preston.

"It is up to us to maintain that belief, stay together and force the belief into the supporters that we can stay up."

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