Steve McNamara admits some of his players thought they had reached the play-offs at the end of last night’s dramatic game at Hull FC.

The Bulls posted their fifth successive win with a gritty 21-18 triumph – but it wasn’t enough to make the eight.

They came into the game knowing that a win, coupled with a St Helens victory over the Catalans Dragons, would see them scrape in.

But Catalans caused a massive shock by winning themselves and they have taken the last spot.

McNamara said he didn’t let the players know what was going on at Knowsley Road and admitted: “Wayne Godwin was jumping up and down at the end celebrating. He didn’t know. We kept it away from them the best we could.

“I think the Hull fans tried their best to make sure we knew but some of the players weren’t aware. I didn’t want them to be.

“Great credit to the players. We spoke about finsihing off in the best possible fashion a few weeks ago and to be seen as the form team of the competition.

“We’ve gone some way to doing that. I’m pleased for the players. They actually won that game last night as it could have quite easily gone the other way at the back end there. We deserved it.”

The Bulls were 18-6 up but Hull came back to level.

However, Paul Deacon stepped up with a drop goal – while team-mate Glenn Morrison was in the sin bin – and then slotted a late penalty to secure the victory.

They haven’t reached the play-offs for the first time in their history but McNamara said: “We’ve not lost it last night. We missed out earlier in the season when we’ve lost some games we should have won. There have been plenty of games we’ve been in complete control of and lost and we’ve had an awful amount of bad luck and misfortune at the start of the season.

“But we compounded that by throwing some games away ourselves.

“That’s the reason we’re not in the top eight this season. We did everything but win games earlier and it’s come back and bit us on the backside.

“Our boys in there, they don’t feel ready to finish. Unfortunately they’re going to have to. They could have given it a good shake (play-offs) but it’s not meant to be and we’ll come back again next year.”