HULL FC head coach John Cartwright fears key man John Asiata suffered a serious hamstring injury in their 24-6 derby loss to Hull KR.
Asiata – who had two long spells out with hamstring tears last season – went down in back play while Lewis Martin went over for what appeared a try to level the match, only for the video referee to overturn in what proved a costly minute.
Cartwright: “If we’d been given the green light then, we could have been in front (with the conversion) with 25 to go.
“But my heart broke when I saw Jonny. We knew he’d done his hammy when he got up and he tried to walk off.
“With the amount of work he’s done to get back on the field, and for that to happen… you don’t want to see it.
“I was looking at Jonny when we scored and I haven’t seen it (Martin’s try) again.
“There’s a lot of messages on my phone saying it was a try, but I haven’t had a good look at it yet.”
Hull had two further injury concerns afterwards, with Cartwright adding: “Joe Batchelor felt his hammy tighten up. I don’t think it’s major. He tried to battle through it.
“Jonny looks like it’s a pretty bad hamstring injury and Arthur (Romano) looks like he rolled his ankle pretty bad, too.
“Hopefully they’re not out for too long.”
But Cartwright pointed the finger at his own team first and foremost for derby defeat.
He said: ”Losing Jonny, we lost a fair bit of direction, but it’s no excuse. We have to come up with a plan being without him.
“They fought really hard. I never question their courage and never-say die attitude, but it’s not good enough to win games against most opposition, especially this mob.
“Even though we were in the game at half-time we didn’t play well in the first half.
“It’s hard to put a finger on – we play games where we completed at 90 or 95 percent and games like today where we were at 50 percent at some points.”