With bigger fish to fry, those of the European variety, a long trip to Hull was never going to rank as that important to (Sir) Roy Hodgson, especially when your Premier League status is secure.
Therefore, it never came as too much of a surprise to learn that Bobby Zamora, Damien Duff and Danny Murphy had all been left in London to contemplate a Europa League quarter-final with Wolfsburg rather than a kick-and rush relegation battle with Iain Dowie and a Hull side still encamped in the relegation zone.
However, what did come as a surprise was that the name of Jimmy Bullard would be the one to open the scoring. Jimmy, fresh back from a second serious knee injury, slotted home a spot kick with all the panache we knew he had and that cheeky grin that spread across his face probably said it all.
The spot kick came after only sixteen minutes of play after Bullard had engineered an attack that saw Chris Smalling infringe Jozy Altidore. Was it penalty? They`ll say yes whilst we`ll grimace.
If Fulham had ambitions of getting back into the game, in the second half, they were crushed with only three minutes gone with Dean Marney producing a lovely cross for Craig Fagan to loop a header past Mark Schwarzer.
On reflection though it could have been different! Before Bullard was able to score from the spot and display his trademark effervescent grin, Hull had to hack a chance off their own line.
The first saw Boateng block a shot from Zoltan Gera and with half time approaching Gera thought he`d levelled but the impressive Steven Mouyokolo cleared from under his bar.
In different circumstances I`d probably be moaning like mad and berating the fact that Iain Dowie was celebrating his first home win as the new gaffer at Hull but like I said earlier, there`s bigger fish to fry now!
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