Blackburn crush Hull to secure first win

Ryan Hedges (right) scored the opening goal and was outstanding

Ryan Hedges scored his first goal for more than a year as Blackburn Rovers crushed Hull City to emphatically secure their first Championship win of the campaign.

Yuki Ohashi and Todd Cantwell also netted in a resounding victory for Valerien Ismael's side, who had lost all three of their previous league and cup matches this season.

Hedges and Cantwell were outstanding for Blackburn, who recovered from a shaky start to the game and in the end were totally dominant.

But Hedges did miss a glorious chance to add a fourth when he shot wide from eight yards out after being teed up by Axel Henriksson.

Cantwell has made an impressive return since missing Rovers' opening match and will hope for more of the same against his former club Norwich next Saturday, when Hull will look to bounce back away to Bristol City.

Hedges, who had not scored since last August, put Blackburn ahead with a classy finish on 18 minutes.

Sidnei Tavares headed towards Augustus Kargbo and the Sierra Leonean's clever pass set up Hedges, who coolly dinked the ball over keeper Ivor Pandur.

The goal came against the run of play - and after Blackburn keeper Balazs Toth had produced three key saves in the space of a couple of minutes.

Toth prevented a Yuri Ribeiro own goal and, from the resulting corner, kept out Oli McBurnie's header, before quickly being called into action again, this time to save Joel Ndala's effort from near the edge of the penalty area.

The visitors continued to have the upper hand after going ahead, with Hedges heading Ryan Alebiosu's cross over and Karbo firing wide.

And two Rovers goals in the space of three minutes early in the second half crushed any real prospect of a Hull comeback.

First, the Tigers defence was caught out by Cantwell's clever free-kick, played to the left-hand side of the penalty area to Hedges, whose ball in towards Ohashi bounced off the Japanese striker and into the net.

Then Alebiosu bundled his way past a feeble challenge from Ryan Giles on the right and sent in a cross which was parried by Pandur straight to Cantwell, who helped himself to his second league goal in as many appearances.

There was almost a fourth soon afterwards as Dominic Hyam launched himself at Cantwell's left-wing corner and the ball struck the defender's back and then the crossbar.

Hull rarely threatened - and looked vulnerable on the counter-attack, with Pandur denying Ohashi and Hedges failing to apply the finish when he seemed certain to score.

'Our best away performance' - reaction

Hull boss Sergej Jakirovic told BBC Radio Humberside:

"A very disappointing day for us. After 20 minutes we had some chances to score and then we made one mistake in our defence which they punished with a goal.

"At half-time we tried to change things and they then punished us with two quick goals. In the end I must congratulate Blackburn on a deserved win.

"We had a lot of problems before this game. We missed some players and had a virus in our dressing room, so this is maybe a key question of energy and intensity.

"We must analyse this game, keep going and keep working."

Blackburn head coach Valerien Ismael told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"When you win your first game it's really good because you start your Championship season.

"When we lost games we stayed calm and focused. We deal with adversity and now we're moving forward and the win will help us to start the season.

"In the second half we scored two goals straightaway and that gave us the confidence to control the game. Since I've been in charge at the club, that was the best away performance.

"Now before the international break we have a difficult home game against Norwich and we need the same performance and same focus."