So now we know for sure. Wolves can stay up. We don’t know whether they will, of course, but they can.

That’s not to be under-estimated, when you remember they reached this stage six years ago reeling from 10 goals conceded, one point secured and the already-certain knowledge that the Premier League was about to blow them away.

But this already feels very different. The Championship boys the club spent the last three years recruiting are showing up well. The newcomers, Kevin Doyle especially, are making their presence felt.

The football is a nice mix, direct one moment and more fluid the next. Mick McCarthy’s team have been competitive in each of the four contests it has faced so far, and with key players still to make their presence felt there is none of the make-it-up-as-we-go-along scrambling with which Dave Jones had to contend in the previous Premier League campaign.

No, this is a much more well-planned assault on the top flight and Saturday’s frustrating but encouraging performance only added to that prospectus.

Indeed, it produced so many good points it’s still difficult to believe Wolves were unable to grasp the three that mattered.

Shaken by a beautifully-crafted Hull goal in the third minute, they gathered themselves, played their way back into the contest, got a thoroughly-deserved equaliser and then contrived to waste four prime chances to seal a victory their play undoubtedly merited.

There will be a point, later in the season, when they will not be able to take such a generous view of the missed opportunities which have checked this otherwise highly-promising start.

But for now, they can hope that the anticipated return of the team’s most prolific striker, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, and top-scoring midfielder Michael Kightly, will improve the ratio of goals-per-chances which will be so vital to the quest for survival.

This was not a day for carping, not when there was so much to be positive about.

Doyle’s debut for one, a wonderful little opening salvo which was denied the perfect crescendo – a winning goal – by a point-black stop from Hull skipper Michael Turner which made it only too clear why half the Premier League will be trying to sign him in the next 24 hours.

Wolves’ record signing is an elusive forward, as the Molineux faithful will have noted down the years of combat with Reading, but perhaps only now that he is in their club’s colours are they relishing the touch and tight turns which give him such a valuable all-round game.

It will be tempting to imagine how effective those qualities will be alongside Ebanks-Blake, but McCarthy was not just being loyal when he highlighted Doyle’s instant combination with Andy Keogh which propelled Wolves forward so frequently and fluently.

But Keogh would not claim to be the club’s best finisher and it was clinical chance-taking Wolves needed so desperately against Hull, particularly after Richard Stearman’s equaliser from the first free-kick of a second half just 44 seconds old.

That was dropped on to the edge of the area by Michael Mancienne, headed on by the redoubtable Jody Craddock for Stearman to steal around the back of Hull’s defence to prod home the chance on the half volley.

If Wolves didn’t actually lay siege to the visitors’ goal thereafter, they certainly gathered menacingly around the edges and got through enough times to be today boasting better than the point-a-game average these opening four matches have produced.

George Elokobi, handling his first Premier League start with disconcerting ease, played Keogh into goalscoring positions twice but a header straight at Boaz Myhill and then a weak, left-footed clip wide of the advancing Hull keeper did for him.

No matter, it seemed, when Doyle then moved in on a break-down in Hull’s area and venomously hammered a right-foot shot from barely three metres out. In an act of front-line bravery, Turner threw his body in the way and prevented a goal, doubtless to first a curse from McCarthy and then the old centre-half’s grudging respect.

But even then, Wolves should have nicked the win only for substitute Sam Vokes to skim a header wide from Matt Jarvis’s cross in the dying minute of added time.

These are the openings McCarthy knows his players cannot treat so carelessly forever. They have to become a one-goal-every-three-chances team and not the 1 out of 6 outfit they possibly are at the moment.

Still, elsewhere there is much to commend especially in the way the players recruited for this long-range project of re-establishing Wolves in the top flight are faring.

Elokobi, Stearman, Jarvis, Keogh – none look out of place while it is difficult to believe Karl Henry has ever played better for his home club.

His electric charge forward and tackle in the first minute of the game set the tone for a performance which, for its setbacks, never lost its conviction.

Henry again gave a footballing demonstration of the attentive security officer checking all the doors and exits on his tour of the team’s corridors, shutting out Hull’s efforts to steal a victory on the counter attack.

And still Craddock plies his trade so effectively, justifying his renewed contract some felt was sentiment-based and sticking to his duties like the oils on his canvasses back home in his art studio.

This will all bring encouragement to Kightly, Kevin Foley, Chris Iwelumo and Ebanks-Blake as they look on. If their mates can respond so positively to the Premier League challenge, then so can they.

One final point. Though not quite sold out, Molineux built up some hefty decibel levels in response to the club’s request to ensure a hostile environment for visiting teams this season.

Based on this, the neighbours shouldn’t count on getting too much peace over the next eight months.