A few months ago when Adam Pearson took over at Hull FC I was quite impressed by his early statements, he said all the right things about getting Hull FC to the top and said he had the funds available to get there. I wondered whether he might be similar to Simon Moran and Hull could be a new force, I think I remember on these forums after we lost the playoff to Leeds and various fans of other clubs were saying we had missed our time one of the predictions was that an ageing Warrington might get overtaken by an emerging Hull with money behind them.

But I have to say looking at their signings so far, their "new dawn" has a feel of Warrington's "new dawn" this time ten years ago when Steve Anderson had come in, we were signing relative nonentities and hoping for the best.

Look at Hull's ins and outs so far for next season:

In - Andy Lynch, Brett Seymour, Eamon O'Carroll, Wade McKinnon, Tony Martin, Martin Aspinwall, Aaron Heremaia, Jamie Ellis

Out - Craig Fitzgibbon, Lee Radford, Sean Long, Sam Obst, Martin Gleeson, Luke Briscoe, Epalahame Lauaki, Danny Washbrook, Ewan Dowes, Cameron Phelps, Mike Burnett

I think Andy Lynch is a good signing but that's about it. Seymour and Aspinwall are dangerously out of the same mould, players highly rated when they first started, whose careers have gone downhill along with their behaviour off the field. Wade McKinnon has had a lot of injuries and was another who was highly rated when he started out but never made it that big. Guys like Martin, Heremaia, Ellis....are they really SL class or NL class...?

I know Rome wasn't built in a day but this doesn't really look like their new owner has got the funds behind him to back up his ambitions. When Simon Moran took over in mid 2004 we signed Gleeson and Fa'afili pretty much straight away and then were bringing in guys like Kohe-Love, Swann and Bridge for the next season.

Hull on the other hand, unless they have got some big signings to come at the moment they look substantially weaker than this season. I know Shaun McRae is their Director of Rugby now in charge of the signings but all those signings look like the type McRae would have signed for Salford.

As it is now I think Hull FC risk being edged out of the top 8 by one of Bradford or Salford next year.

The fact that Hull FC don't produce many quality youngsters, is also a big stumbling block for them.

Not really. Warrington's rise from relegation battlers to back to back Challenge Cup winner and top of the league was hardly based on numbers of quality youngsters, it was based on making the right signings and building a team.

However you have a point if you make a distinction between QUALITY youngsters, and youngsters. How often do you see it on these forums where fans go bragging round because their club has x amount of home grown players in their first team and how that bodes well for the future....it doesn't mean anything if those players aren't up to it.

As regards bringing through youngsters Hull had a golden generation come through in the late 1990s - early 2000s of Radford, King, Cooke, Richard Horne and Yeaman. In most of these players cases though they peaked early in their careers and were on a decline for a while after that.

Then when Hull were in their best period, in the mid 2000s, they had a lot of other young players coming through that were highly rated: Graham Horne, Higgins, Dixon, Hill, Washbrook, Wheeldon, Lee, Houghton, Burnett, Hodgson, Hall. At this time Hull fans were always going on about how many young players they were bringing through, Eddie Hemmings was always saying the future is bright in Hull...the question is why did they go downhill? Because actually although they did bring all those players through most of them were borderline SL quality and they ended up either moving on to other clubs or being on the fringes of Hull's first team. Granted Hull have also made bad signings from outside as well.

But on this debate about bringing young players through, as a Warrington fan I've been hearing from fans of other clubs for years how the problem Warrington has is it doesn't produce enough players while their clubs are bringing through all these youngsters, but Warrington have been on an upward path and generally overtaken these other teams.

Most of these players were signed before Pearson took over, only Lynch, Martin and Aspinwall were signed after the takeover, with little room to move this year (cap wise) I expect next season to finish between 4th-8th and then Pearson to splash the cash. Martin and Aspinwall were signed as a stop gap and forward cover for a year until more money and better players are available.

Hull will start to blood more younger players next season aswell as before Agar would move 4 or 5 different players around the team instead of playing a youngster.

It's interesting to see a different fan's perspective of our situation at the moment. Indeed we are in a huge transitional phase, in terms of ownership, complete new coaching set up, large numbers of players both out and in, new training facilities, etc etc etc. However, It can only be a positive for most Hull fans. Over the past few years we have underachieved with the squad we have had. The likes of Berrigan and Fitzgibbon have come to the club, huge names in RL, but it has been one man (Agar) and his band of merry men (Uncle Kath and Co) who have been happy to see us coast along,

Exciting times at our club, anyway, just to see what our next step will be.

(p.s. Heremaia played in this years NRL Grand Final

)

its a testament to the powers up high that we have turned out to be the club/team we are.

it wasn't that long ago that youth team was disbanded and were were playing infront of 5000 fans.

and posters like rogues come on here and try to poke fun at the age of our team.... that's what makes me laugh the most.... like us warrington fans give a f*ck about the average age of our team.

were bringing in players like trent waterhouse these days.

the fact that we are now building a great youth system that is going to feed the machine is a massive bonus.

plenty of trophies for the wires over the next 5-10 seasons.

Danger Alert.

Hull are in danger of becoming the new Bradford. Signing everyone elses cast offs.

Last season, there was a lot of people predicting an upsurge in Bradford's form, because they were signing 'reasonable' SL standard players. However, as I pointed out at the time, these were merely cast-offs. Bradford last season were a basket case. Hull, I fear, will be joining them. They need to watch out. Don't forget, we were doing the same thing in the late 90's, when we were strapped for cash, and we just went from bad to worse (bar the Peter Deakin years). It took us years to recover.

Hull really need to watch out

I was going to use Heremia's Rise, fall, Rise, and (no offence) sidewise move on the Kevin Penny Thread , but then I couldnt be bothered.


Heremia strated off in the Bartercard cup then played a bit of lower league Aussie rugby before moving to Widnes Halifax and Leigh, he then went back to play reserve grade in New zealand then reserve grade in Australia before winding up at the Warriors in 2009 when he would have been 26.

So he doesnt have a top flight pedigree ...which is what Sal was alluding to and while he did play in the grand final so did Ryan Bailey over here...!!!

anyway I was going to post that to show that people can take numerous backward steps before ending up in the top flight...the only difference Penny started off well and with great hype and Heremia didnt.

for what its worth I do think Hull are the dreaded dark horses this year like us so many times... they have the capability to beat anyone but they could also stink....
their squad is worse but I didnt rate Agar and I would fancy even this unknown (to Me) Aussie will be better.

When the new owners took over everything was ready for Hull to push on and become serious contenders for trophies. Then they appointed Mcrae as director of rugby and condemned themselves to at least three more years of false hopes and subsequent mediocrity.

I get the feeling we need to watch out...

I can see what you could be saying with cast off i.e. Martin and Aspinwall, but Lynch as a cast off? We bought him from Bradford, and he made more metres, offloads and tackles then any of your players did this season

Probably because he had to.

Andy Lynch has always been a good and underrated player, I would put him ahead of the likes of Bailey and Crabtree, just behind Carvell. Definitely a prop to be respected. But I don't rate their other signings. I don't have anything against Hull, I'd like to see them be a strong team (not overtake us though), just expressing my views that at the moment I am not that impressed.

We'll see how they go. They are certainly an improvement of last season, on the whole:

Seymour-Long
Heremaia-Washbrook
McKinnon-Phelps
O'Carroll-Dowes

We're all most excited about a season without Agar. We have players like Briscoe, Manu, Westerman and Houghton who have undoubted talent and need the right coaching to bring them on to the next step. It's scary to think what Manu could have done in a champion team/with a champion coach over the past few years.

Hasnt Fitzgibbon left this year though? He'll leave a big hole in the team. And the signing of Tony Martin and Aspinwall to play in the backrow?! Barmy. Surely Hull have some U21 backrowers better than Martin Aspinwall? *shakes head*

Indeed we may have some young back rowers who are better, but they have never been tried and tested with the utility mad Agar, who would shift around numerous positions to cater for an injury. Aspinwall will add experienced back up for Tickle, Manu and Westerman, and on a one year deal he has all to play for.

Hull seem to promise everything but deliver nothing.

Over the past 4 years, I would agree. However 2007 we finished 4th, 2006 finished 2nd and Grand Final, 2005 CC cup win... a trend has formed since Agar joined, which is what we need to reverse with the new regime.

Success like that should have been bulit on.To take such massive backwards steps like Hull have,the blame cant be put on the shoulders of Agar.The board must take some responsibility.

That's fair enough. That's how I felt about us signing Deacon a few years ago; low risk signing not costing the earth.

It must grate losing Briscoe to Leeds IIRC and adding Aspinwall?

I think the difference is that Hull cannot do what Warrington did. When Warrington made their move they made it at the right time. Any money man coming into the game now cannot do that. 1st when moran came in we still had the quota system rather than the federation system so as long as your monkeys uncle was british then you did not count. Same for Kolpac players.

Also there was no requirement to have x numbers from your own youth in the squad.

I'm sure the Hull cheif has the the money, but the league now has restrictions that cannot simply be by passed. An element of his squad has to be home grown, then there are contracts to fullfill that are ongoing and the limit on bringing in overseas puts a club lower down the division on a longer curve to get up to the top 4 side they may wish to be.

Who can they buy? What massive quality has been left to purchase come the time pearson took over.

Even if he could stump up the cash for transfers in say £1million for roby and get the head room on the federation for say monaghan. Would he have the room on the cap to fit them in with current contracts and would the player move to a team where silver wear maybe 4 or 5 years down the line, compared to clubs that currently finish in the running year in year out.

Buying success was easier when there where less rules about who can play. Now it's more than just the wage and transfer fee offered. You have to fit it within all the other competing criteria, that money can't buy.

This doesn't make sense though because Hull have just signed four overseas players for next season.

Warrington didn't make their way through signing players whose monkeys uncles were British. Guys like the Monaghans, King, Hicks, Hodgson were/are all on the overseas quota.

Simon Moran spent a lot of money on British signings: Gleeson, Bridge, Grix, Bracek, Reardon, Parker, Barnett, Morley, Johnson, Carvell, Higham, Mathers, Myler, Atkins. Most of those were either GB/England internationals or became internationals with us.

I'm trying to think who we signed that was on a "Kolpak" rule, I think it might have been Logan Swann and Henry Fa'afili. Not sure if the Andersons counted off quota, Vinnie certainly might. But I think it's stretching it to say Simon Moran was able to buy Warrington's success by getting these off quota players and that route is now closed. The players that made a difference were either British or quota Australian players.

absolutely.... we have spent alot on british players..... and look at the standard of our foreign players

M.Monaghan
J. Monaghan
T. Waterhouse
B.Hodgson
Solomona

im looking forward to next season \0/

Sally how many of these players would you call a success?

Well eight of them have won trophies with us so that's pretty successful plus I would say Gleeson was successful as well.

The only really disappointing one IMO was Reardon. Bracek and Barnett were not great but they didn't have big expectations surrounding them either. Parker had a good first year then went into the 'okay but not special' category.

You might be first to see Hull's new players first hand ''If its true you come to KC
for the first game of the new season