FONUA IN FATHER’S DAY TRY DOUBLE

IT HAS been quite the fortnight for Mahe Fonua. Two weeks ago, the big winger missed Hull FC’s Super League clash with St Helens with his wife in labour. On Saturday, his baby daughter was in the stands at Wembley as her father scored two tries as Hull overcame Wigan 18-14 to retain the Challenge Cup. Fonua had been unsure whether the final would come too soon for his new arrival. ‘I’m very, very happy she made it,’ he said. ‘This was her first game. She won’t remember it but I will show her some photos one day and hopefully she’ll be proud of me.’ Coach Lee Radford admitted he had come close to not selecting Fonua. ‘I’m really grateful he kept his faith in me,’ said the Tongan, who will head back to Australia’s NRL at the end of the season. ‘The last few weeks I haven’t been showing form and I really needed to repay him. I thought I did that.’ Fonua may well consider himself unlucky not to pick up the Lance Todd Trophy, which instead went to Hull playmaker Marc Sneyd. ‘He does all that work and probably doesn’t get as much credit as I do when I put the ball down for those tries,’ Fonua said. ‘I’m just the icing on the cake.’ Fonua’s brace was a fitting end to a topsy-turvy week in which he had been made to wear a pink T-shirt in training — handed out for poor performance. ‘You have to wear it for a week and it goes on how many errors you made in the last game,’ he explained. The T-shirt was conspicuous by its absence at training on the eve of the big match. ‘I didn’t wear it as there was media there. I tried to hide it as much as I could.’ There was no hiding his talents under the arch on Saturday.