LEEDS coach Brian McDermott attempted to deflect some of the criticism on winger Tom Briscoe, whose vulnerability under the high ball was cruelly exposed by Hull in their 43-24 Challenge Cup semi-final win at Doncaster.

Hull shaded the first half, but only went in front with Chris Green's try on the stroke of half-time after England winger Ryan Hall had produced two spectacular finishes for Leeds.

Centre Carlos Tuimavave scored his second try of the match early in the second half and Hull cut loose in the final quarter to put the seal on their best performance of the season.

On Briscoe's weakness, McDermott said: "It's something he'll have to address and it's something we are addressing.

"At the same time, our winger jumps all over their winger, but Tom gets the attention.

"I don't think we were that bad. The loss was more to do with them being really good on game day.

"I could be critical of my team, but Hull's forward ran a bit too strong in the second half. They had a huge amount of field position and we never seemed to get a hold in the game in the second half.

"It will hurt. It's a tough pill to swallow – we've a couple of blokes retiring at the end of the year – and there are some things we need to address in the next few days."

Hull will meet Wigan in the final after securing an immediate return to Wembley.

Coach Lee Radford has vivid memories of Wigan's 16-0 win over the Black and Whites at Wembley four years ago and believes this week's announcement that the Super League duo will together undertake a three-week tour to New South Wales in February will make it a mouth-watering Cup final.

"I was really confident of getting a result, but it went better than I could have expected," Radford said. "It's super pleasing as a coach when you see it come to fruition.

"You get a sense of when you're on and I felt that during the week. It all came to fruition.

"Everything we set out to do in the week was executed nigh on to perfection and the effort and willingness to work for one another was really special.

"How we starved them of field position in the second half was particularly pleasing."

Hull were dominant up front while stand-off Albert Kelly impressed on his return from injury, scoring one try and helping create three others, and his half-back partner Marc Sneyd kicked seven goals from as many attempts in a match-of-the-match display.

"Marc has been off for the last three or four weeks, but I thought he took control of the game today and got the team around the field," Radford added. "His kicking was second to none."

After leading his side to their historic victory at Wembley last August, captain Gareth Ellis says they are ready to defend their trophy.

"It feels a little bit different to last year," Ellis said. "There is a bit higher level of expectation this year, we want to build that consistency.

"We worked on our failings over the last three or four weeks in training and built for this performance. We executed the game plan almost to perfection, only Danny McGuire kicks caused us some problems.

"If we keep turning up with this attitude and we're prepared to sacrifice a few areas of the game for the betterment of the team, I can't see anybody beating us."