Millwall will be fearing Sergej Jakirovic's Hull City blueprint in the play-offs | OneFootball

The Tigers should be seen as no pushovers in the post-season lottery

After one of the most dramatic of final-day play-off battles in Championship history, Hull City's remarkable season has been extended for at least another two games.

For the first time in 10 years, the Tigers are in with a chance of reaching the second tier play-off final at Wembley Stadium for the third time since 2008, with Sergej Jakirovic and his side batting away several instances of adversity on route.

It has been well-documented that the East Yorkshire club were hit with a transfer fee restriction for two windows shortly after the Bosnian's installation as head coach in June, putting pay to any deals he and the recruitment team initially had in the pipeline, as well as several injury issues to key players throughout the 46-game regular season.

Now they are gearing up for the challenge of facing Millwall over two legs on Friday and Monday evening at the MKM Stadium and The Den respectively, with the Lions also achieving a play-off berth at Championship level for the first time in 24 years themselves.

For both clubs, it has already been a season of huge success, as Alex Neil's side ran Ipswich Town close to automatic promotion right until the final day, whilst City, for the first time this season, went more than two games without victory - seven in all - before climbing back into the top six through Oli McBurnie's heroic brace versus Norwich City.

And, whilst the end table showcases a 10-point gap between the Tigers and Lions, Neil and his players have already seen a strong blueprint forged by Jakirovic in their two league meetings, and the City boss will hope that continues with a slightly different outcome.

Hull City have impressed in both regular-season outings v Millwall despite home loss

In the two regular-season showdowns, both Hull and Millwall emerged 3–1 victors on their travels, but that doesn't necessarily tell the full story.

Even though the roles are reversed in terms of the play-off schedule, City travelled to SE16 in December and raced into a two-goal lead through Kyle Joseph's brace, and after withstanding an onslaught of sorts which included Femi Azeez seeing red and Aidomo Emakhu's goal for the hosts, sealed the points through McBurnie's glancing flick.

Then came the return fixture in HU3 on March 7th, with both sides still in automatic contention at that particular time.

While City were far from perfect in a defensive sense in the latter stages, allowing Mihailo Ivanovic and Josh Coburn to put the seal on Millwall's own 3-1 success on away soil, the overall picture was far different in the eyes of Jakirovic.

Indeed, the Tigers dominated essentially each of the key attacking metrics, and after Joe Gelhardt immediately cancelled out Jake Cooper's opener after 14 minutes, they were on the end of a controversially disallowed goal when Oli McBurnie was adjudged to have fouled Anthony Patterson in the lead-up to a glanced header from Joseph.

"This was the best home performance since I've been here because we played a very good game, we created a lot of chances and missed a lot of chances," said Jakirovic post-match.

"If you didn't watch the game, you'd think Millwall kill you [us] but we were very good and I hope we will continue like this because there are a lot of games in front of us and you never know.

"We made two mistakes (in the second half). We dropped too much, didn't attack the ball but this is football, there is always something happening that you didn't expect and we have to take the lessons from this," the City boss added.

The aforementioned Neil will also know what is coming his side's way, having been rather complimentary of Hull when learning that they would be Millwall's semi-final opponents after their own last-day win versus Oxford United.

Hull City will hope to buck 16-year Championship play-off trend under Sergej Jakirovic

To add further intrigue to their situation, the Tigers have form against their play-off rivals showing in their favour, having taken 12 points from a possible 18 against Millwall, Southampton and Middlesbrough respectively.

However, from a historical perspective, there is even more.

City, of course, have won their previous two Championship play-off campaigns against Bristol City and Sheffield Wednesday respectively, when coming third in 2007/08 and fourth in 2015/16 over the course of 46 regular-season games.

Ironically, the only time they have lost out in the semi-finals beforehand was against a London side who had second leg home advantage, with Leyton Orient coming from behind against Brian Little's team of 2000/01 in League Two, who had faced even more adversity through a near-extinction crisis at Boothferry Park.

However, no side which has finished sixth has emerged as Championship play-off winners since Blackpool, under Ian Holloway, defeated Cardiff City in an end-to-end final which saw all five goals within the 3-2 result scored in the first half.

As such, the Tigers will be hoping to buck said trend, which has lasted for 16 years, with an achievement that will go down as one of the greatest ever in the club's 122-year existence, on top of reaching the post-season lottery in the first place.