ATA Hingano had never kicked a drop goal before Thursday night, but an off-the-cuff first one-pointer of the Tongan’s career ended up making Super League history for York Knights.
The halfback’s kick from Liam Harris’ pass with four minutes left saw last year’s Championship grand final runners-up stun reigning champions Hull KR with a 19-18 victory in the season-opener at the LNER Community Stadium.
Even the most optimistic of York fans would perhaps not have turned up expecting one most stunning upsets in Super League history on their competition debut, and even Hingano was stunned by how it transpired.
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“Yeah, f*** – it’s the first one of the career,” Hingano, who hailed York’s willingness to play what they saw, told Sky Sports.
“I was kind of hoping Liam would nail it, he’s been doing that all day in training.
“In training he didn’t pass to me once. To see us pull it off, I’m pretty happy with it.
“There was no call, it was just off the cuff – but that’s probably the best way we play footy, off the cuff like that.”
The Knights had led through an unconverted try from off-season signing Sam Wood, and were level at the break thanks to a Harris penalty after Jai Whitbread’s converted score.
But Whitbread’s second try and another from Jesse Sue put visitors Hull KR 12 points up after 55 minutes.
Last year’s treble-winners were dealt a blow when Mikey Lewis was sin-binned for recklessly tripping Harris off the ball, though, and now face a nervous wait to see if their star half will face further disciplinary action ahead of next week’s World Club Challenge showdown with Brisbane Broncos.
The Robins being temporarily down to 12 players opened the door for York and they barged their way through, with Wood’s second and Scott Galeano capitalising on an error, plus conversions from Harris, hauled the hosts level.
Hull KR compounded that with further errors which the Knights seized on before eventually working themselves into position for Hingano to slot the match-winner.
“It wasn’t pretty, but one thing this team is built on is hard work and togetherness, and I think we showed that in the last 10 minutes,” York player of the match Paul McShane told Sky Sports.
“A big thing that pulled me to go again this year was the culture and how everyone just wants to work hard for each other. Night like this make it worth it.”
“There was a lot of doubt, but it was nice to get that win out of the way and just massive to get that win.
“We’ve managed to be part of Super League and to get our first win, I think it’s just outstanding for the club.”
YORK 19 (Wood 2, Galeano tries, Harris 3 goals, Hingano 1 drop goal) beat HULL KR 18 (Whitbread 2, Sue tries, Martin 3 goals) at LNER Community Stadium
Teams:
YORK KNIGHTS: Tom Mata’afa, Ben Jones-Bishop, Sam Wood, Nikau Williams, Scott Galeano, Ata Hingano, Liam Harris, Xavier Va’a, Paul McShane, Paul Vaughan, Oli Field, Jesse Dee, Jordan Thompson. Res: Denive Balmforth, Jack Martin, Justin Sangare.
HULL KR: Arthur Mourgue, Tom Davies, Peta Hiku, Oliver Gildart, Joe Burgess, Mikey Lewis, Tyrone May, Jesse Sue, Jez Litten, Jack Brown, Rhyse Martin, James Batchelor, Elliot Minchella. Res: Jack Broadbent, Sam Luckley, Jai Whitbread, Karl Lawton.
REFEREE: Liam Rush.
