At a recent fans forum , Pearson said the Hethringtons and Agar were involved with Briscoes move to L**ds and he had the phone records to prove it . Other's involved have since been sacked from the club.
A total overhaul of the youth structure has or is under way so this sort of thing never happens again.
As for the lack of youngsters coming through to first grade in recent seasons seems to coincided with Agar's reign as head coach . Good at spotting talent but never really blooded anyone in the first team apart from Reece Lynn .
Aspinwal and Martin are on 1 year deals and wont be here for the 2013 season and with a host of other contracts up at the end of 2012 . We should see Pearson's reign as chairman really start to kick in.

My point is that you cant compare these as the same. When you are looking at overseas players now you will not get similar quality as in the past.

Look at Saints and Wire we have signed players heading towards the end of their NRL careers. So a club in a lower position will struggle to get fuirst dibs.

I was not trying to insult the wire but its a fact in the past if your squad had deficiencies all over the feild you could turn it round in a season. Sign 4 overseas players add 4 kolpac or passport players annd fill the rest form those willing to move in SL.

Now Hull have to fill x places from within and if they dont have the correct youth setup already in place then its going to take some time to build a squad to chakllenge.

The fact remains you cant tempt players already on top dollar eg roby or monaghan to a club were sweeping changes are needed which will take some years to turn around.

Well you are away to us first game so you can assess us then.

The last few years have been awful - and like you say, the board should have invested fuerther to build on th cup finals. Instead the did nothing, lived off the profits. It is thought that due to the drop in attendances last year we are looking at a small loss, and with the tex bill coming they wanted a get out. Pearson was there. Nearly all the salary cap was taken up but Peter Gentle wanted Lynch so we signed him. Martin and Aspinwall on 1 year deals are not as bad as they seem. There are a lot of kids i feel that are ready to step up but due to Agar's insistence on not playing them at all, we're not sure so we had to get a bit of experience in just in case.

FWIW, i think our starting 17 will be stronger than last year on the whole.

2011 - 2012

Phelps - McKinnon ------> McKinnon offers a more potent attack than Phelps
Whiting - Sharp --------> I expect Sharp to kick on this year under P Gentle
Turner - Martin ---------> Not sure on this, Turner played quite well at the back end
Yeaman - Yeaman
Briscoe - Yeaman
Horne - Horne -----------> Suffers when having to organise, has Seymour/Ellis now
Long - Seymour -----------> Younger and fitter, good organiser and kicking game
O'Meley - O'Meley
Houghton - Heremaia ---------> NRL Finalist, would have played for NZ to but 4 injury
Dowes - Moa --------------> Probably our best prop in the 2nd half of the year
Manu - Manu -----------> Maybe finally we will utilise him properly
Tickle - Tickle ------------> Expect him to take the captaincy, very underrated player
Fitzgibbon - Westerman ---------> Looks as though we will have a pivot at 13 finally


All in all i am quite optimistic, think it comes mainly from off the field developments. New training facilities, coaching staff, conditioner etc. Pearson stated that the investment in the club had been abysmal in the last few years, something which has already been remedied. Maybe not this year, but in the next few i am hopefull we will be challenging

I take your point Sally but I think it comes down to more than a simple in/out list. Your points about our youth development are very accurate though and is a major part of Pearson/Gentle's plans.

The main key to us is Seymour, if we can get fit HB to lead us around, that in itself will be a huge plus. Horne is still a good player but needs a leader next to him. We would kill for a Monaghan type player.

Long and Gleeson aren't a loss to us, they hardly played. A fit, trouble free Gleeson of a few years ago would be a loss to anyone but we wont miss what we never had. Washbrook (far too slow) n Dowes wouldnt have been in the 17 bar injuries either. Lauaki is a total liability, a penalty machine who doesnt run his weight. Young Briscoe, we'll have to wait and see but potentially could be the worse loss, having said that he wouldnt have got in the first team this season probably. Radford will be missed by us more than many Hull fans realise and Fitz goes without saying. You wire fans will remember his performance at your place at Easter time, he was the main reason we won.

Therefore i think Lynch and O'Caroll improve our front row whilst having reservation about our back 3 if imnjuries strike. However, I look forward to more expansive play from the back 3. In Westerman and Whiting we have 2 of the best footballers around and either would be a fantastic LF for us.

Agar was a joke, and his departure above all else will have most FC fans hoping for better times.

It always took years to turn around. You could never turn it round in a season - name one club in the past that has turned it round in one season by signing loads of Kolpak or passport players. It has never happened. With Warrington it took five years to go from Simon Moran taking us over to us winning the Challenge Cup, the point I was making at the start of the thread though was why are Hull signing the players they are, guys like Tony Martin and Aspinwall etc. Those are just signings to get bodies into the squad, it's preparing for a battle at the lower end of the table. This is exactly what Warrington did in 2001/02 off season and we had a disastrous season.

I can see the constraints on Hull, they wouldn't be able to go out and make wholesale signings for 2012 so maybe the plan is just to make do with what they have got next year and try to make some signings for 2013 when they have cap space and existing players coming off contract, but they need to have a credible year next year, if they struggle they will have the fans saying its another false dawn and ambitious players will never go there, they will just sign players that want a pay day and/or can't get another club.

The great unknown in this is what will Gentle be like as a coach, if he is a coaching genius he might be good at getting the best out of what Hull have got and can get them to a decent position but I think he will come under a lot of pressure if Hull are below Agar and Wakefield next year, Wakey have made some decent signings although they are thin in the pack.

It should have been built on, but wasn't. And you're right, it stems right back to our old board, they went for the cheap option in Agar, and look where that got us.

Thankfully, that board has gone as well as Agar.

And if we do nothing much next season I will say thank God for that statement.

The Hull experience from 2007 onwards is something that should keep us on our toes. Ten years ago they were the club most likely to challenge the existing order at the top. Remember when we signed Langer and they signed Jason Smith, both Langer and Smith were class acts in Super League but we trod water even with Langer in the team, Hull went onwards and upwards. I remember being jealous of them when they won the Challenge Cup and then knocked us out of the playoffs with Andrew Johns in our team and then made the Grand Final the next season, but they lost a lot of good players within a couple of years, Kearney, Swain, Blacklock, Cooke, Briscoe, Domic, Carvell and they have struggled to replicate their old form without those players, and they got overtaken by us, Wigan and Huddersfield. The danger is this could be us in the next few years, with King going and probably Morley, Hodgson, Briers, Michael Monaghan, Solomona to follow. I think we are better set up as Hull seemed to have a calamitous board and problems inside the camp, but it's a lesson for us to heed.

As I said above, I would agree with this statement but we have a NEW board and a whole NEW set up. Whole new coaching staff, physios, assistant coaches, head coach, owner, directors.... If we go backwards after this big change then I will start to worry, but I can only see improvement in this transitional year for us.

The club will be aiming for top 6 for 2012, then top 4 2012.

impressive!

I think that's a reasonable expectation from where Hull are today. Remember that breaking into the top 4 (Today's) would mean overtaking Saints, Leeds, Wigan or us.

I think the post was referring to a typo stating that were going to finish in two different positions next year

Maybe they could finish 6th in the league and get to the last game before the Grand Final, which means they would technically finish 4th. Leeds managed to finish 4th and 1st this year.

Or even 5th and 1st

It's realistic improvements which most fans will be happy with. The years of waste and mediocrity will not go away in one season.

I'm surprised that people from other clubs think that Hull have weakend their 17.
McKinnon, Lynch are both better than who they've replaced, Seymour is a really good signing plus Longy hardly ever played.
Aspinwall and Martin are bad signings but they will only be here for one season and I would imagine they are only here to pass on experience and numbers when injuries accur.
Gentle will also bring in some youngsters such as Kent, Bowden, Cunningham, Pearce, Green, Crooks.

We've brought in plenty of players this season but I'd say next season is when the squad will be start to take place properly.

Hull have lost Fitzgibbon, a really good player, ergo; weakened. Whilst replacing the absent Long is a good thing, I really don't get this notion that Seymour is a good player. He has had numerous opportunities to prove it, but has been found wanting.

So you dont think that Seymour is a good player really, why?

Followed him when he was a youngster at Brisbane. I thought he was gong to be a good 'un, but he just seemed to fall away. The fact Brisbane moved him on for Perry (a thirty-odd year old from the Brisbane competition), speaks volumes to me.

Since then, he has bummed around, seemed to be getting some form at Cronulla, but let himself down with some off-field activities. I just get the feeling he will blow-up off the field.

didn't perry come over here and play for catalan for a season?

Yes. Didn't Walters sign him?

2009 season, played 16 memorable games

2008 season when Cronulla finished 3rd in a team known for their defence and had the 2nd lowest points for in the league only the team that finished BOTTOM had less points for, I'm also a Sharkie fan as well as Wire.

Brett Seymour is a gamble in more ways than one, he's had off field issues and then you have his injury record which aint the best.

He comes across as a mood type player, when he's in the mood he can do some good stuff but when he aint in the mood you wouldn't know he's on the pitch. I think he's end up as one of those NRL players that showed a lot of early potential but he never kicked on to fully fulfil the promise, thats one of the reasons he's ended up over here.