Two refereeing howlers extend the Tigers barren run in televised game, as the season's third defeat is witnessed by the Sky cameras.

Yet another Hull City match that can be added to the lengthy list of those played under the television cameras where Hull City have failed to win. In quite a poor match, where the referee made a number of increasingly frustrating decisions for the Tiger following, two rather controversial goals settled the result in favour of the Ram from Derbyshire.

Lining up in the failed attempt to vanquish the television hoodoo:

Myhill
Ricketts Collins Turner Dawson
Fagan Marney Livermore France
Parkin Duffy

The Derby team listed in goal the ex-Tiger loanee Steve Bywater in goal, with former Tiger Adam Bolder seated on the bench.

In the early exchanges, a long ball up field by Myhill saw Parkin on the edge of the Derby area back into his defender, and uses his weight to turn well, unfortunately his touch had gone too far and was easily collected by Bywater.

At the other end, with Ricketts trying to start a break up field, he loses possession on the half way line with the Derby left winger, Holmes, getting possession and running down the inside left channel. Whilst Ricketts did well to recover and try and track his man, he never really got in a good position, so a high cross was easily made, but fortunately Myhill easily collected.

Derby's Idiakez proved a thorn in City's side for much of the match, and an early break forward from him was only thwarted by an excellent Marney challenge.

This, however, served only as a warning for what was to come. In the 7th minute, Livermore dived in for a challenge, but missed the ball, which was played by a Ram trough a rather static Hull City defence. As a result Derby's Matt Oakley broke the off side trap to shoot from the edge of the area, past a despairing dive by Myhill. It was suspected that Oakley may have started his run too early and been off side, but neither of the officials gave that decision. Derby now lead 1-0.

Immediately City had a good chance for an equaliser as Dawson played a long cross-field ball to Fagan on the right angle of the box. He drags the ball onto his left foot and tried to curl in at the far post, but narrowly misses the goal.

A few minutes later, with Derby passing the ball across midfield, Duffy intercepts the pass, and attempts to play the ball to the right wing where Fagan is waiting. Marney steps in and takes the ball before it reaches Fagan and advances to the edge of the area where he shoots wide.

If that hadn't warned Derby, they try the passing the ball through midfield again, and this time Marney intercepts the ball. He passes to Duffy in a central location, who tries a shot from range which the keeper easily saves. However Marney was frustrated with the young Scot, as he'd taken up an excellent position to Duffy's left, with no defender near him, whilst Parkin was similarly well placed to Duffy's right, so perhaps the shot wasn't the best option available to him.

Straight from that Derby's Paul Boertien heads towards the Tigers' box, and goes down very easily following a rather soft push from Dawson. The referee Woolmer shows how fussy he is being through the match by moving the City wall back all of 6 inches. The free kick taken by Idiakez is punched out for a corner by Myhill, with the resulting corner played too long and out for a goal kick.

Duffy needed an extended period of treatment following a knock he picked up. The referee allowed a Derby throw in to be taken, when Duffy clearly was unable to stand, and it was only when Derby put the ball out at the opposite side of the pitch that treatment was allowed to be given.

With Parkin sometimes being slow to react to the balls played to him, and Duffy hobbling about following this injury, our forward line was very ineffective in holding the ball up, meaning that constant Derby pressure was being exerted on the Hull City midfield and defence.

Once again, with Derby passing the ball about midfield, City gain possession, but this time from a rather unlikely source. A pass bounces off the referee and is collected by Fagan on the right, his run down the wing sees him cross invitingly into the area where Parkin is advancing, but the exposed Bywater does very well to collect the ball one handed.

Just after the half hour mark, a throw in is given to Dawson who plays in Parkin down the left channel and wins our first corner. Dawson's corner to the front post is cleared to the edge of the area to Marney whose shot is blocked by the big Derby defender, Moore.

This signals the end of Duffy, who's still showing the effects of the earlier challenge, and is replaced by Nick Barmby, who takes Duffy's position up front.

Straight away, a long Myhill ball is flicked on by Parkin to Barmby, who cleverly plays the ball to the right wing and the waiting Fagan, who then manages to whip in an inviting cross, which is once again cleared.

Within 5 minutes of coming on, Barmby sees his name taken by the referee. With the ball near the half way line, on the right wing, Barmby puts in a fairly fierce challenge which leads to the booking.

The final act of the half sees the ball played to Fagan on the right corner of the box by France. A Derby defender commits him to a challenge where Fagan took the initiation and went down under the defenders challenge and saw the referee award us a penalty. Parkin takes the penalty and plays to ball just to the keeper's left, whilst Bywater dives to his right. So City go into half time level at 1-1.

My thoughts of the first half were of a largely formless game.  I know in the past "largely formless" means either "I've spent too long in the pub and missed the opening minutes" or "I needed to nip out during the match to use the toilet - just glad nobody scored during that period", but in this case it meant that the play was bogged down in the middle of the park with neither team really challenging the opposing goal keeper. The play throughout the first half saw City frequently playing long balls up to Parkin, whereas Derby did at least try and pass the ball along the ground between themselves.

Derby seemed to have got this tactic was figured out, along with the referee, as defensively they had the smaller centre-back Johnson marking Parkin whilst the much bigger Moore marked Duffy, then latterly Barmby. The result was that whenever City played the ball up field, if it went towards Duffy/Barmby, he was frequently out-muscled by Moore, so he could simply head clear. If it went towards Parkin, he often knocked over the Derby defender, seeing the referee give Derby a free-kick.

Defensively City did look solid as a unit against an admittedly poor Derby forward line. Quite often with Collins stepping out of defence to clear any balls dropping just in front of the back-line.

The second half saw play repeating the style of the first half, with perhaps City showing a little more urgency. Early on, Marney knocks a long ball onto France on the left wing. Frances advance towards the Derby area is impeded by Moore who enters the referee's book for his troubles. A long Marney free-kick just evades everybody's head and past the back post.

Derby's Barnes is felled by Livermore about 40 yards out on 51 minutes, but a poor free-kick is easily cleared.

A couple of minutes later, a long Ricketts ball is chested by Parkin to the on rushing Fagan. A tangle between Fagan and the Derby left back could have easily gone either way, with the referee typically giving the decision in Derby's favour. This, along with the other decision are seeing the Hull fans getting more and more annoyed, with chants of "You don't know what you're doing" ringing out from 3 sides of the ground.

On the hour mark, a long ball forward is collected by the Derby keeper. Whilst his feet were clearly outside the area, he held the ball backwards. From my angle I couldn't tell whether he'd carried it out of the area or not, but it looked almost as close as Myhill did at QPR last season.

A nice passing move between Marney and Barmby released Jon Parkin, but a very poor first touch sees the ball too far in front of him, but that doesn't matter, as the off side flag was up anyway.

On 70 minutes, Past Serial City tormentor Steve Howard gets the ball on the edge of the area with the City defenders too far either side to be marking well. He chests the ball down, but fortunately Myhill collects well.

A couple of minutes later, the ball is played to the right wing to Derby's Barnes. As Dawson was covering inside, he did well to get across. As the cross came in, the ball appeared to hit Dawson's chest and start to fly towards the City top corner, where Myhill did very well to collect the ball.  However for some reason the linesman further incised the City support, by holding his flag across his chest, claiming Dawson had handled the ball. The resulting penalty by Smith went to Myhill's right, who was unfortunate not to have got a hand to it. Derby now lead 2-1. As the penalty was about to be taken, a number of City players appeared to be pointing out to the referee that the ball was not on the spot. Whether this is some of the Sports Psychology that Watford used against Green last season, I couldn't tell. It didn't work as well as it did on Stuart though.

On 76, Livermore tried to head the ball on, but gets clattered by a Ram for his trouble. As Oakley's name is taken by the referee, City line up for the free-kick, only to see Derby frustrating us by making a substitution, thus delaying us. The result saw the free-kick hit over by Marney.

On 79, City replaced France with Elliott. Quickly, Dawson concedes a corner, which is hit to the front post, allowing Fagan to clear.

A minute or so later, Barmby flicks the ball into central midfield where the excellent Dawson pops up and is felled by a despairing Derby challenge. As the ball runs lose to Fagan, the ref plays an advantage, but Fagan puts his shot wide.

As a result of the earlier challenge, Livermore is replaced by Andrews.

With 5 minutes of normal time added, Ricketts is fouled 40 yards out, allowing Dawson to take a free-kick. The ball is played into the back post where Derby concede a corner. Dawson takes this set piece, but is cleared by a Derby defender, who appeared to have used Turner or leverage when getting up to head the ball clear.

Ex-Tiger Adam Bolder then replaces Barnes, to a mixture of the odd boo, or a brief smattering of applause by the home crowd.

With Parkin offering little as the second half progressed, the final two action points of the match did involve him. Just before the end of the standard 90 minutes, a long ball from the right to Parkin sees him turn his defender well, but his shot is saved.

Finally in the second minute of five added on, Parkin is fouled 30 yards out on the right. A Dawson free-kick is cleared, before being pumped back into Parkin. He appeared to take 1 touch too many and the ball went quite wide, where his shot was blocked by the Derby keeper and then rebounded off Parkin for a goal kick.

Overall this was a poor match, where I doubt the TV ratings would have too much troubled Big Brother. Whilst we could say the ref was very poor and gave Derby a number of strange decisions, our long ball tactic did not help much.

Some players of note were Dawson's excellent captain's display, where he constantly drove the team forward. Livermore started a bit weakly, but grew in stature as the game went on. Whilst he doesn't appear to be a strong tackler, he does put himself about quite a bit, and passes very well. Collins did very well in defence. Parkin, whilst he can be a very effective threat, and does seem to have lost this week's requisite few pounds (some of it from having a shave!), does fade quite badly in games, and offered very little for large periods of the game.

Oh well, at least we're not on telly again for a few weeks.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Collins, Dawson; Fagan, Livermore, Marney, France; Parkin, Duffy.  Subs: Barmby (for Duffy, 34), Elliott (for France, 79), Andrews (for Livermore, 81), Thelwell, Duke.

Goals: Parkin 45 (pen)

Booked: Barmby, Collins, Livermore

Sent Off: None

DERBY COUNTY: Bywater, M Johnson, Boertien, Moore, Jackson, T Smith, S Johnson, Oakley, Idiakez, Howard, Barnes.  Subs: R Smith (for S Johnson, 57), Leacock (for Jackson, 78), Bolder (for Barnes, 85), Bisgaard, Peschisolido.

Goals: Oakley 7; T Smith 74 (pen)

Booked: Moore, Oakley

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: A Woolmer

ATTENDANCE: 15,261