Clubb shrugs off '˜no try' call and says: Hull deserved the win

The prop crossed the whitewash when Wigan trailed 18-10, the ball dislodged in the tackle as he rolled over to score - before he put his hand on the loose ball.

Referee Phil Bentham referred the decision to video official James Child, who ruled Clubb had knocked-on.

The decision caught many by surprise, including Hull coach Lee Radford, who thought it should have been awarded.

But the player himself wasn’t blowing up about the decision afterwards.

Clubb said: “I thought the ball was stripped, I don’t know if you can do that in the in-goal - but he gave it as a knock-on and whinging isn’t going to change the result.

“I’ve no dramas with the result, we didn’t play that well.

“There were turning point we felt we should have got on top of, but we didn’t. You’ve got to give credit to Hull, they played very well, Sneyd kicked us to death and they fully deserved to win.”

His sentiment was echoed by several of his team-mates.

I honestly thought the Clubb one was a try, I’m not just saying that because I’m a Wigan player,” said Liam Farrell.

“It looked like it was stripped and he put the ball down, but they ruled it not to be and on another day it may have been given.

“Refs have as tough a job as we do.”

Full-back Sam Tomkins said: “It looked clearly ripped and he put it down. But you’re not going to get every call.

“We can’t depend on referees, we know that, so we need to put fate into our own hand and play better.

“We won’t dwell on because there were other periods we could have been better.”

And Joe Burgess, who himself was denied a match-levelling try, added: “I don’t know what happened with the Tony Clubb incident -I don’t know what they could possibly give there.

“But I’m not blaming that. No way. It’s a big factor, but there were other factors were we did it to ourselves.”

Londoner Clubb was playing in his first Challenge Cup final and had plenty of family and friends at Wembley.

He admits the tense finish, and the fact two of their three tries came from Marc Sneyd’s boot, made the result harder to stomach.

“I thought we’d pinched it at the end, when Budgie went over, but they called it back - and rightly so, it was forward,” he said.

“We’ll wrap our heads around it and get back into work and put things right.

“Full credit to them they defended their line well. Their last plays were better than ours - the two wingers, I didn’t feel they were breaking us down. Their plays weren’t getting us, it was the two kicks.

“It’s a tough one to take. If you feel you’ve been massively beaten by a better team, you can take it - but we were right in it until the very end.”