PETER Gentle says taking Hull FC to the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup means the world to his side as they continue to dream of a Wembley appearance.
Gentle has made no secret of his desire to go all the way in the cup this season and was full of praise for his side's defensive heroics as even the loss of two players to injury failed to deny them a comfortable 24-6 win over Wakefield at the KC Stadium.
Hull were camped inside their own half for the majority of the second period, yet still edged the second half 8-6, much to the admiration of a proud Gentle.
"I thought our defence was outstanding," he said. "Wakefield in the last month have put some good points on Wigan, Warrington and Catalan, they are very dangerous with the ball, but our guys were fantastic.
"In the second half they had 88 play-the-balls to our 55 and the majority of those were inside our 20, so to only concede one try was terrific.
"It is really satisfying being in the last eight. It means a lot to us.
"We spoke about it before the game as it being our biggest game of the year, so to win in the fashion we did was great.
"We had to dig in after losing two interchanges and after holding them to six points, I'm full of praise for our defence."
Hull were forced to win the hard way despite the one-sided nature of the scoreline.
The Black and Whites lost prop Liam Watts inside the opening 10 minutes with an ankle injury and then saw Richard Whiting hobble off at the start of the second half with a serious dead leg.
"We picked up our regulation two injuries again," added Gentle.
"Liam will have scans on his ankle, but it's possibly a ligament strain, whereas Richard has a bad knock above his knee. It looks like it's only a dead leg but it is a nasty one.
"It meant Andy Lynch played 70 minutes and Paul Johnson big minutes, whilst Aaron Heremaia had to play in the middle. But I'm proud of the boys."
Three tries in five first-half minutes put the Black and Whites a step closer to Wembley and they never looked back, adding to a 16-0 half-time lead with two second-half tries from Jay Pitts.
Richard Horne gave another vintage display, scoring Hull's opening try before captain Gareth Ellis notched his first for the club and Kirk Yeaman added his 150th for FC.
The result means Hull will be in the quarter-finals on the second weekend of July, but with such a long period before the next game Gentle is eager to see his side put their cup dreams quickly to one side.
He added: "We are on to Warrington now straight away. We can't dwell on this, we have to put it to bed and focus on a big game on Friday night."
