Gareth McAuley prefers clean sheets to goals for West Brom

The 36-year-old defender opened the scoring with a towering first-half header at the KCOM Stadium to put the Baggies into a deserved lead.

But Hull skipper Michael Dawson equalised 18 minutes from time, sweeping the ball home after it fell to the floor in the Albion box from a deep free-kick.

"It's always nice to get on the scoresheet," said McAuley. "But I'd rather have had a clean sheet and all three points.

"It was actually a bit funny. I knew I got a good contact on it but right at the far end there was a delayed reaction (in the Albion end) so I had to check it went in.

"It's a nice little run I'm on at the minute and hopefully that continues. But as I say, clean sheets is what I'd be interested in."

Albion remain in ninth position after picking up a point away from home, but they had a chance to go sixth today.

After controlling the first half and failing to make their dominance count, the Baggies were stung by a resurgent second half performance from Mike Phelan's team.

When McAuley was asked if it was one point gained or two lost, he said: "It's difficult (to know)at the minute, straight after the game.

"We played well first half, we knew we were going to have to weather the storm. We couldn't see it out, they've got a goal. We're disappointed.

"Where we have been, and the standards we've been setting over the last few weeks, you'd say it was two dropped.

"It's a difficult place to come. They lost last week but they played very well in the game.

"You take the positives from it. It's a little run we're on unbeaten. We've got a home game next week, hopefully we can win that one."

Although Hull were arguably the better side for most of the second half, Albion should have won it at the end when Salomon Rondon put a header wide from six yards out.

"Salomon is disappointed he hasn't taken his chance," said McAuley. "Again he was fantastic for us today, so a goal would have been fitting. It will come. We're disappointed now, but we move on."

McAuley is now Albion's highest goalscoring defender in the Premier League era, and is joint-top of this season's charts alongside Rondon and Nacer Chadli.

But there's no chance of the 36-year-old chasing down Tony Brown's all-time scoring record.

"Bomber's safe on that front!" he joked.