Whats going on? Are we as bad as the score suggests?

If we dont watch out we are going to seriously lose touch with the front runners and the season is only a few weeks old.

Very slow, very sluggish performance. We struggled to stop their offloads which was worrying. Flower, Bullock Sarginson and Hamlin all played well, Davies tried hard. We just lacked any zip until Sammut came on and fair play to him, he took charge and bossed it. His pass for Flower’s try was a beauty. Hardaker had a chance to win it with a conversion after the hooter but that would have been harsh on Hull. They deserved their win.

it's a damn good job there's only one relegation spot & that stupid playoff system is in the bin. Although if we don't get some decent wins soon, we could well be looking over the shoulder at London come September.

Today wasn't the worst I've ever been unfortunate enough to sit through, but it's up there.

Kicking STILL patheticically useless. Who's doing the the defense & tackling coaching? cos they need a P45. I didn't see anyone directing traffic. The leadership "committee" worked well under Madge, why isn't it this time round? Wrong members?

I suspect (especially if the RFL remain in petulant mode & don't give us our points back) that 9th or 10th is not unreasonable at this stage.

Yes, that's fair, BRW. We never looked like winners, but then managed to scrape a try at the end thanks to a good run from Hamlin (was it?). Hardaker wasn't good enough to knock the kick over (although it looked very close too me) and I always fancied Hull in GP with their goal-kicking specialist. Not many positives, but Bullock and Sammut must start. Missed tackles were a worry, but beyond that, it's more about defensive organisation.

I was right behind the Hardaker kick. He hit it sweet but had it lined up wrong and outside the posts instead of within them. I’ll never be a fan of golden point. We didn’t deserve to win the game but scraped in at the end with a chance to win. To lose in that way was just poor. Thaler’s interpretation of our player being in the ruck is what cost us field position and when it’s a single score to win a game that’s too much chance to go on for the result for the game. Aside from all that, we have gone backwards massively in one on one defence. We lack size and strength but our small guys and good aerobic fitness nearly got us over the line. Have to disagree about anything positive from Sammut, his kicking was rubbish and the attack and direction from Leuluai, Powell and Williams was shocking. O’Loughlin again the only creative force we have. I’m just left scratching my head at where we go from here with the personnel available.

Some very soft decisions from Thaler, I agree. But can someone please explain to me what's the point of having a scrum clock (of 35 seconds) when the ref just calls timeout instead of enforcing it? If you're going to have rules such that, damned well enforce them!

This is very hard on Sammut. He came on when we were 10 points down and playing behind a beaten pack. It was his first competitive game in SL for 6 years and he took immediate charge of our game. Did you miss his pass to Flower for the try? it was a cracker!

Sammut needs to start and he needs a consistent run in the side before we judge him. Based on today, he’s a step up on what we have. Williams and Sammut at 6&7, Leuluai at 9 Powell needs to miss out on a starting place.

carrying to many players at present powell being the heaviest burden i would sacrifice 20 of his tackles for some extra meters, also Isa offers absolutely nothing it baffles me how he keeps getting picked.
also today hull much like every other team wigan play were making 60 yards on every set, we struggle to make twenty and then put in a bad kick, and why is it when we kick off after a score we do exactly the same sad ordinary kick to the 22 yard area! why give them a start?

Pointless starting Sammut on the bench should have started and dropped Tommy,will he improve I just don’t know we shall see.

The golden point not needed utterly pointless introduction of a fad,same with the shot clack more money wasted as has been pointed out the ref just call time off,waste of time and effort

Because numerous times in the 2nd half, Sneyd kicked for touch and the Hull players made incredibly slow progress to the scrum. As I understand, if the ball is not fed within 35 seconds, then the side who has the ball (ie Wigan) get penalised. Wigan were very quick to form the scrum, at which point the clock is stopped, so Hull cant waste any more time.

That said, I thought we were out-thought and outplayed all over the pitch. And Tautai was a waste of a shirt.

Not exactly
The game clock stops so no time in the game is wasted, but the scrum clock continues.
I never saw the scrum clock stopped today, so no scrums took longer than the allotted 35seconds.
The referee will penalise whichever team he deems to be not ready at the scrum not necessarily the side feeding the scrum (otherwise there would be no incentive on the defending team who didn't have the ball to pack down add they would get the penalty).

I didn't say that the scrum clock stopped - Hull wanted the scrum to take 34.99 seconds and Wigan wanted it to take as little time as possible. However, the official clock still gets stopped when one of the sides is ready to pack down. In that 2nd half, Wigan were generally ready in about 8 seconds.

I take it you didnt disagree with my comment re Tautai then!

Points back or not there is not a chance in a million years we will finish 9th or 10th.

So the Official/Game time stopped correctly and the scrum was taken within 35 seconds - No issues then? In fact the majority of scrums were taken well inside the 35 seconds with up until the last 10mins there was double figures seconds left on most occasions.
Understandable in the last 10 that Hull took most of the allotted time, there was a lot wrong yesterday, most notably with our defending, but the shot clock wasn't one of them.

Don't disagree with anyone about Tautai, frustrating thing is after that first 10 minutes of his (Which took 20 due to the sin binning) when he ran it in and just kept hold of it his runs were ok.
His defence though is never any good.

This sounds like sour grapes and was going to wait a few days, but there's been some talk on the VT about feigning injury - In the 2nd half there were 5/6 occasions where the game stopped due to a "Head injury" to a Hull player, in fact there was another one where the doctor came on looked at the Ref - Tapped his head and did the Head signal and the Ref didn't see it.
10 seconds later said player was up & defending!
The first 3 of the above always seemed to happen when Hull turned over, dropped or didn't turn it over on their terms i.e. knock on as one example.

For Balance

Wigan on the other hand need to cut out some of this throwing themselves about for a penalty at the PTB, Marshal in particular at times is embarrassing.

Hulls first 3 tries yesterday came off the Back of Piggy Back Penalties 4th to last tackle.
Sarginson I think for shepherding (This is one I would love to see again as it looked like the winger ran in the back of him).
Isa, Hands in at the PTB - Stone wall penalty
Hamlin - Tip in the Tackle? (I'd actually turned round and didn't see it as I was just saying that last thing we needed to do was give a penalty away).
Very Dumb at times Wigan yesterday
Best team won
Not a fan of Golden point and actually said at FT yesterday that after such an effort how Hull could have walked away with nothing would have been a joke.

On the "Golden Point" nonsense (can you tell I don't like it already?)...

If we are to persist with it, I believe that there need to be 2 changes made:

Firstly, both teams keep the point that they have EARNED over the course of 80 minutes, and only play on for the extra point that a win brings.

Secondly, we need to have an American Football style system:
During GP, if the team that receives the ball first scores (as yesterday and the Championship MPG last season), the game is only over if that score is a try.
If the score is simply a drop-goal, then the team that has not yet touched the ball in GP gets to receive the ball and play a set.
If they fail the set (knock-on, etc.), they lose
If they score a try in that set, they win.
If they also score a DG, they have to kick-off as normal and the game reverts to "first to score at all, wins" as it is now.

That just means that games are not decided simply by the toss of a coin.

99% of the time, whichever team wins the coin-toss for GP will receive the ball and win the game on the first set, without the opposition ever touching the ball.

Yet we won the coin toss and chose to kick to them

To kick a drop goal after receiving the kick off, you realistically need to make at least 60 metres (assuming you pass back 10 metres from the opp 40 and manage to knock one over from half way). Are you really saying that 99% of the time the defence will fail to stop the opposition making at least 60m in 5 tackles, then fail to put enough pressure on the kicker to prevent a long range drop goal?

If it was as easy as you claim, then in general play teams would just go into permanent cycles of receiving the kick off, driving up the field, kicking a drop goal, receiving the kick off again etc without the opposition ever touching the ball. FWIW I think electing to kick off is the better decision if you win the toss, as really you ought to start your set in better field position. Let the opposition receive a kick off and play out a set in their own half, risking an error in the process.

you cant win from a drop goal on the first set anymore in the NRL

Hull had 2 sets after the Bullock penalty.

Yeah I know, was replying to the above comments

They didn't have 2 "Sets"
They had 2 Tackles?

It was their 2nd "Set" though as the penalty instigates another set.

Well for once i actually agree with you but you know why they are doing it dont you? Its because we cant make metres because we lack any real size and power runners.

Penalties or throwing the ball around in our own half and making a break is the only way we can get any decent go forward. I know all teams milk penalties but we do it worse than most. Sometimes the opposition doesnt even have a hand on the player and he is wriggling around like somebody that got shot by a sniper.

First thing is to get the players back into the wrestling pit. The number of times this season they have made contact and the tackle then hasn't "stuck" has been alarming.

As for the feigning injury, it was really noticeable again yesterday and something I remember was done at Wembley when we played Hull in 2017.
Don't get me wrong, Hull were worthy winners and anything other than a victory for them would have been an injustice, but we have to cut this acting out of the game. Huddersfield and Catalan are also prone to it.

Heard some bad reports about Catalans for a couple of outings (Not heard anything about Huddersfield) but yesterday Hull deffo were doing it.

I think in the England/Wales RU match the other night the game continued when injuries occurred more often than it now does in a RL match (That's worrying).

There was one instance where the Hull doctor did the "Head injury sign" - The referee didn't see it and by the next PTB the player had got up and continued, if it was a Head injury how can he let him get up and join in next PTB?

Everyone around me was saying that the only way we would win in GP time was to keep Sneyd away from DG range. Cue a dumb-ass penalty, a kick to touch and 6 tackles starting from about 40 yards out, and the entire row in front of me was already on their way out as they knew it was game over the minute the penalty was awarded.