Town boss Paul Jewell admitted to being gutted that a late Hull equaliser stopped his side from claiming a third successive home win under his management, but says he is delighted with the team’s overall progress since he took over as manager six weeks ago. Tigers sub Jay Simpson’s clever header levelled after Jason Scotland had put the Blues in front with his ninth goal of the season.
Jewell said: "I’m gutted we’ve drawn the game, but I’m really pleased with the progress that the team is making.
"We’ve got some good players and we’re playing with confidence at the moment. These players are no different to the ones that were here during the bad run. That’s football for you.
"If you play with confidence, you play with no fear and you could see that we were stroking the ball around as well as anyone. The only thing that was missing were the goals.”
The Blues boss said scorer Scotland is "happy” at Town despite the recent talk of a loan move back to Swansea and was pleased with the Trinidadian’s performance against Hull: "I thought he did OK, he took his goal really well and it’s not easy playing up there on your own at times, sometimes it’s a bit of a thankless task. If he’s quiet for the next 10 games and scores every game, we’ll take that.”
Scotland’s fellow Trinidad and Tobago international Carlos Edwards is also impressing his manager as he continues in an unfamiliar right-back role: "He’s doing very well, he’s getting forward from there and a lot of our attacks are stemming from there.
"I thought Mark Kennedy was outstanding again and has been since I’ve been here. He’s not someone that people want to talk about but he’s given us that stability, quality and that experience. He made a couple of vital interceptions.”
Veteran Kennedy even made some breaks forward, something Jewell says he wasn’t expecting: "I wasn’t too happy about that! I don’t know what he was doing there! A couple of times he drove on.
"He had a job on his hands playing against the lad from Manchester United [Cameron Stewart] who’s quick and Sparky’s kept him really quiet. I’ve been really pleased with him, as well as everybody else.”