Although it's all about opinions I was gonna say the same, but tbh I'm not sure we'd loan him out to Cas. For me along with a couple of others, he's one of the best up and coming FB's in the comp. It's just a shame for him that Grix has been so consistent last season and again tonight. Plus Grix is a better organiser in defence, which is down to his experience and has a few more tricks in his bag like kicking.No doubt though that Jowitt is excellent under the high ball, good in defence and knows how to join the attacking line.

Was Gale wearing the scrum cap because his new fringe hasn't quite bedded in properly yet?

I would take Jowitt in a heartbeat and I've only seen him play twice.

Steve Gill and MC seem to get on well so who knows.

Powell's moaning about being a preseason game light well who's to blame for that ? He had 1 hand tied behind his back with the Zak saga but I still think he / the club could have sorted a proper genuine FB for this season. I love Powell and what he has done at Cas but I think his Roberts as a FB is a stinker. I'm sure Roberts at some stage may have the odd good game at FB but he's nowhere near consistent enough and always has that stinker in his locker just like he did in the grand final and just like he did the week before in the semi against saints.

www.skysports.com/rugby-league/n ... ff-hull-kr Johnstone continuing where he left off. Cas won’t find much better than Jowitt available who has it in him to be a good fullback. On loan of course. That said if Grix gets injured it would be a silly move to loan Jowitt out.

www.skysports.com/rugby-league/n ... ff-hull-kr Johnstone continuing where he left off. Cas won’t find much better than Jowitt available who has it in him to be a good fullback. On loan of course. That said if Grix gets injured it would be a silly move to loan Jowitt out.

Yes and we did not lose him we choose to get rid, and we were proved right to do so.

It's a tricky one.

Good win for Wakey, I thought they'd win a tight one but instead it sounds like they were in control 100%.

Jon Wells summed up Roberts perfectly on Sky last night. He'll never make a fullback. Oh and don't bother to even think of putting Eden there. I think Powell needs to get the cheque book out unless Cas have some body in their reserves/juniors?

We do. Calum Turner is the current England u19s full-back and one of the star players in our academy team that made the grand final last season.

Yeah we have one of those in Hooley but he didn't look anywhere near ready against Leeds on boxing day - huge step up. Jowitt was luck as he was in an unfancied team with no great expectations at the time so he came in unoticed - be a lot harder for your boy but then you may not have a choice.

If i was Powell, i'd give James Clare a shot at FB. He only played there a few times for Bradford but was MOM for each one. Yes i know playing well in Championship isn't the same as SL and he probably doesn't have the ball handling skills of Roberts, but he's safe as houses under the highball, positinally excellent too. Roberts is a good player but always has an error in him if played at FB.

Also, how good was Lomax at HB. He looked a million times better at HB (where he first started out before been moved to FB) This is further evidence for me that when a young HB comes through, coaches need to stop making them into FBs just because they come into the line. It worked once with Tomkins. We've a shortage of HBs and when they do, coaches decide they want to make them into FBs!!

It's an interesting debate but there's no way Powell will ditch Roberts from that FB role, at least in the short term. Not when his planning and entire pre-season would have revolved around Roberts. I don't think Powell's instincts are so bad that he's run with a player incapable of doing a job there. He's had a bad game, granted, but if he follows it with a couple of good ones it's job sorted.

Powell said preseason that he thinks Roberts is a natural FB and it's his better position and said he had plans to use him more there last year had Chase not had to leave.

I do recall actually a couple of early games whilst Chase was still there that they subbed Chase on for one of the three quarters, moved Roberts to FB and Hardaker to wing.

The decision to play Roberts at fullback is absolutely baffling for me. There is no way Roberts has the fitness, confidence or communication skills to be even an average fullback. Why weaken the team in two positions by moving Roberts? Add to that he is too squat/heavy & over 30 it's too big of an ask & is grossly unfair on him as a professional to expect him to just pick up the role when we've had plenty of time to rectify the issue.
It's angered me all off season that we have sat on our hands waiting for the Zak circus to leave town.

Not that I'm blaming this single reason for what, will more than likely, be a mediocre season us. We have no size, no plan b & have too many mentally soft players in the squad; we'll be punch drunk all year in my opinion.

Steady on there.
Remember it is Powell that put together last seasons very successful squad and he knows his stuff.
FB though, is a key role and if the players in front of him start to have some doubts in his ability, they may well have a drop in their own confidence.
Having been in East Hull and not seen the Cas game, what is the difference in last season and this and I know that it's very early days.
A decent performance next week and yesterday will soon be forgotten.

Thats right Powell mentioned Roberts being more of a full back, he also said Trueman is now ready for Superleague and deserves his half back position. However based on last nights game they look as though they could be the weakness in the back line which other teams might exploit, the biggest problem though was the pack didn't turn up and didn't look up to speed, its early days though.

I love DP & wouldn't swap him for any other SL coach, but that doesn't mean he is immune from criticism. Last season he regularly played matches, that were over by half time, leaving an unused sub. Anyone with one eye could see the players were being overworked & would burn out at the back end of the year & he doesn't seem to have learned from that.
Mcmeeken hasn't played well since round 6 2017 & looks shattered. Millo clearly shouldn't have played last night & yet both did, why? There was no need whatsoever.

It may appear that this is an over reaction to last nights result, but those who know me will tell you I'm a realist & have been banging the drum for a while.

I think Roberts can do well at full back, he will offer a lot in attack from there but certainly needs to sharpen up and be smarter in defence.

If you are smart enough you don't need to be lightening quick, Wellens is the perfect example of a very good defensive fullback without pace.

The only time he will look good is running attacking training drills in the opposition 20M. Sadly there is more to it than that.

McDermott's done this plenty of times. I wish at least he'd done it in games we'd had won by half time but I can't even give him that. Not sure whether he does it to condition players into pushing themselves harder than those from most other teams do but I'm rarely able to fault the players' efforts when the chips are down. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd done it more last season than Powell did.

Good point. Only the coaching staff would know whether a player needs to do more minutes to get fitness up or, whether they want to see how they perform when gassed and as you say, at different points in the season, if your team is assured of qualification for the playoffs etc, some coaches have the luxury of being able to "experiment".

I’m convinced that’s a major reason for McDermott doing that with the subs. If you notice in the finals we always use all the players.

I also think McDermott is a believer in allowing the players time to figure out the solution on the pitch if it’s not quite working rather than chopping and changing things which can have a positive effect but could also have a short term negative effect especially in defence when a sub comes on.

There’s also the argument that, say, a knackered Cuthbertson may still be more effective/useful in a certain facet of the game than a 100% fit Mullally/Keinhorst/Walters etc.

I think this is the key thing. Even if the players don't figure out the solution on the day they'll be better for staying out there trying instead of hiding on the bench. That's the one thing I think Leeds do better than anybody and that's learn from their bad games and keeping them out there when they've got it wrong arguably helps rather than say the game is done let's wrap them in cotton wool.

Looks like witless Widnes has done a number on clueless Catalans.

Surely you mean wonderful Widnes against calamitous Catalans.