Hull boss Phil Brown has paid tribute to the manner in which his side have evolved from relegation battlers to automatic promotion contenders.The Tigers go into the final day of the Championship season at Ipswich on Sunday guaranteed a place in the play-offs and still harbouring hopes of finishing second.

Last year Hull finished one place and seven points above the drop zone to provide a clear indication of the dramatic transformation in fortunes at the KC Stadium over the last 12 months.

Brown is unsurprisingly delighted with the progress made by his players as they prepare for one of the biggest games in the club's 104-year history.

"If we win the game on Sunday that will be a 29-point improvement on last year," said Brown. "If you take that, and that alone, as a progress report then we've made massive strides in such a short space of time.

"To go from finishing fourth bottom to a minimum of finishing third is a massive sign of how far we have come.

"There have been a number of critical situations and turning points in the season so far. Going to Dubai for a training camp in January and then playing awful against Coventry and winning the game 1-0 is one.

"We didn't have that mentality last season. We didn't have a 1-0 mentality last season and we've had it five or six times this year.

"We didn't have a clean sheet mentality last year and we've got it on 15 or 16 occasions this year. We didn't have a philosophy of football last year and we've that as well this year."

If Hull are to a complete an unforgettable turnaround and clinch promotion to the Premier League they will have to become only the second side to leave Portman Road victorious.

Only Watford have beaten Jim Magilton's men - who also go into the game striving to secure a play-off place - on home soil.

But Brown knows only a win - coupled with a Stoke defeat against Leicester - will be enough to see the Tigers reach the top tier of English football for the first time.

"The only thing we can concentrate on is to win our game," added Brown, who has a virtually fully-fit squad at his disposal for the trip to Suffolk.

"If we do win our game we'll be looking at the vidiprinter to see what Stoke and Leicester have done.

"It's a massive game for us. Portman Road has been a fortress all season and Ipswich have certainly played two different ways, one at home and one away from home. Their home form suggests they are a good footballing team."

Asked if he felt the club was on the cusp of making history, Brown added: "Do I sense it?

"I'd be a liar if I told you I didn't sense that something big was on the horizon.

"Now horizons are short and horizons are long. It could be Sunday, it could be May 24 in the play-off final or it could be May 24 next year.

"What I will say is this club is certainly built for bigger things and it has a history of being in the lower leagues and that needs to be changed. I think we've gone a long way to changing it.

"I think the infrastructure is now in place to go further and go on. I think we're ready to move on."

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