Mo Belloumi and Joe Gelhardt came off the bench to score the goals that sent Hull City to Wembley as they beat Millwall in their Championship play-off semi-final second leg at The Den.

Having replaced the injured Kyle Joseph in the first half, Belloumi cut inside to curl in a brilliant opener off the far post after 64 minutes - breaking the deadlock in the tie after a goalless first leg.

Another of Sergej Jakirovic's changes proved inspired as Gelhardt scored within a minute of coming on, firing low through the grasp of Millwall goalkeeper Anthony Patterson.

Hull finished 10 points behind third-placed Millwall in the league table and are on course to continue their 100% record in the Championship play-offs, having won promotion via that route in 2007-08 and 2015-16.

The Tigers will face Southampton or Middlesbrough in the final on Saturday, 23 May, for a chance to join Coventry City and Ipswich Town in the Premier League next season.

Saints and Boro play their second leg on Tuesday, following a 0-0 draw in the first leg.

While Millwall boss Alex Neil opted to field the same XI from the first leg on Friday, Jakirovic made two changes, opting to drop his two eventual match-winners, bringing in Joseph and Semi Ajayi and playing with a back three.

The visitors made a bright start and looked dangerous from set pieces, with Charlie Hughes drawing a save from Patterson and then heading wide.

Millwall, who have been outside the top flight since 1990, then began to take control of the game on their home turf, with Femi Azeez forcing a save from Ivor Pandur with a shot from a tight angle after a sustained period of pressure.

The pivotal moment came late in the first half when Joseph's foot appeared to get caught under a challenge from Thierno Ballo, forcing him off injured.

To the astonishment of his manager, Algerian Belloumi was not ready to come on, which meant his side had to play briefly with 10 players.

However, once the second half kicked off, the 23-year-old's impact on the right wing was clear and it was he who came up with the game's biggest moment of quality.

Moments after Barry Bannan and Alfie Doughty had come on for Millwall, Belloumi found himself one-on-one with Doughty on the right, took a step inside and stunned The Den with a goal worthy of winning any game.

Belloumi was also at the heart of Hull's second goal, stealing the ball from Milllwall captain Jake Cooper on the halfway line and surging upfield, before switching the play across to Gelhardt on the other side.

Gelhardt took a touch before firing low across goal and his former Sunderland team-mate Patterson got both hands to it but could not keep it out, with possibly the deftest of deflections off Ryan Leonard making an impact.

As Millwall threw players forward, spaces opened up and Matt Crooks had a chance to put the game out of sight, running clean through but chipping the ball into the hands of Patterson.

Rewind to May 2025 and Hull were staring down the barrel of relegation to League One.

A 1-1 draw at Portsmouth kept the Tigers in the second tier on goal difference at the expense of Luton Town, having gone into their final fixture in the drop zone.

Ruben Selles departed, Jakirovic was brought in and the transformation this season has been extraordinary.

Yet even then, it all could have been so different. Having spent much of the campaign in the top six, a run of just two wins in 11 matches meant they dropped out of the play-off spots in the closing weeks of the season.

A final-day win against Norwich nudged them into sixth spot ahead of Wrexham and Derby County, and they now have an opportunity to return to the Premier League for the first time since 2017.

Millwall will rue Leonard's disallowed goal in the first leg, when Tristan Crama was penalised for a foul on Hughes, which would have given them a lead to take back to London.

The Lions missed out on automatic promotion by just one point but have had a season to remember, recording their highest league finish since 1993-94, but are still left waiting for their first semi-final win in the second tier.

Hull City boss Sergej Jakirovic told BBC Radio Humberside:

"[It's a] great feeling, an amazing feeling. I'm very proud of the players, of the whole club, all people in the club, all the fans also - they were very loud today.

"Maybe this is the biggest achievement in my life and football career. I won some titles, I have had until now a successful career, but this, in these circumstances, to get to the final, I'm very proud of everyone here in the club.

"When the game started, I just told the players that we must have a strong start in the game, which I think we did. We were very good [for] around 20-25 minutes, and then one or two mistakes there, we didn't clear the ball and then they start to push.

"I think we were excellent today."

On the reasons for naming Mo Belloumi and Joe Gelhardt on the bench: "Because of the condition of those players, and because when I watched the first leg I decided to put one extra centre-back, then we have good height for set pieces, and also we have a good balance because they're coming with two full-backs very high.

"We were fantastic today and also we were very patient, we knew our time would come."

Millwall head coach Alex Neil told BBC Radio London:

"[The feeling is] disappointment as much as anything else and I think frustration. I didn't think there was a lot in the game, I thought the first goal was always going to be a deciding factor in the game.

"We're the home team and we wanted to really force the issue. We rolled the dice a little bit early with putting on our striker [Mihailo Ivanovic] up front.

"But I still think we lacked quality in the game, I didn't think there was enough quality shown in terms of getting into good areas and crosses in the box.

"I put the two guys [Alfie Doughty and Barry Bannan] who you would probably say have got the quality in our squad onto the pitch to try to influence that and give us a bit of momentum, but unfortunately within 30 seconds or a minute of them coming on, the ball ends up in the back of the net.

"After that we start chasing our tail a little bit and from there it becomes difficult for us. The second goal - we try to keep the ball in play so we can sustain an attack and it costs us the second goal - they break and then they manage to score.

"At that stage, the game gets taken away from us."