THE alarm bells on Saints’ season are now ringing loudly after they slumped to their third defeat in a row – this, without doubt the most worrying and inept showing thy have tossed up for a while.

For large parts of the match Saints looked anxious and rudderless against a team that, despite the mathematical possibilities, are essentially playing for pride.

With key men like halves Travis Burns and Luke Walsh unable to find a spark, their confidence and swagger non-existent, Saints failed to get into any sort of rhythm.

The jitters set in, and once again but for the notable exceptions of James Roby, Alex Walmsley and Mark Percival, there was a wholesale lack of urgency, energy or application.

All of a sudden, after being up with the front runners for so long, the team has suffered an implosion that it seems hard to rectify given the thick and fast nature of the Super 8s fixture card.

Despite starting this phase of the competition with a significant buffer, that will be soon whittled away if Saints, particularly some of their high profile stars, don’t pull their fingers out.

Speculating, it IS almost as if the cup defeat by Leeds, their third by the Rhinos this term, has drained them of belief that they can get anything out this season. There was certainly a lack of a something out there in a game that went from being turgid to a chaotic debacle.

Hull had the better of the opening exchanges – playing like a side without a care in the world they tossed it around and initially found some gaps on the edges.

But it was Saints who opened the scoring on 24 minutes, when Mark Flanagan smuggled the ball out of the tackle for loose forward Luke Thompson to power over.

But five minutes later Hull level when Burns pass was intercepted by Marc Sneyd, who send Curtis Naughton in at the corner.

In the closing stages of the half Saints began to up their game and after Walsh’s kick trapped Jamie Shaul in the corner, Saints pressed.

And fine hands saw the ball shifted left again for Swift to cross in the corner.

Josh Jones made a fine break and had options either side before choosing to send James Roby dashing in.

At 18-6 at the break, Saints could count themselves fortunate to have such a cushion despite their out of sorts display.

But they should have drawn confidence from that given their next score would have ended the visitors’ interest in the game and the season.

However, it was Hull, picking up on the lackadaisical approach of the hosts, who scored next.

After Tom Lineham had one chalked off on the left, Hull fired it right where Naughton scored his second.

Roby’s break, backed up by Joe Greenwood, gave a flicker of hope that Saints were going to grab the game by the lapels. Alas the second rower was caught and the phase of play ended with a Jones knock on.

It gave all the encouragement Hull needed to hang in, then have a crack and Joe Westerman took a short inside ball to cut the deficit to two points.

Then the Humbersiders hit the front for the first time when Sneyd’s clever kick was touched down by Shaul.

The fits and starts and quirky bits of individual play, rather than a co-ordinated team effort, continued to draw blanks.

Percival dashed 60 metres but they were unable to capitalise on that good position, with Jones pushing a daft pass into touch.

Hull cashed in on a fumbled kick by Matty Fleming behind the line for Naughton to score his second.

Saints’ horrible night continued when, desperate for the game changer, Saints attacked right where Mark Flanagan ended up kicking badly into the arms of Hull, with Naughton running it in from 60 metres for his hat-trick.

Percival grabbed a late consolation, from a kick inside, but that gave little comfort the fans in the relatively low 10,203 gate who had witnessed a thoroughly awful performance.