Its not the presence of Aiton, but the absence of Ellis.

Chickens coming home to roost regarding the crazy decision to let Ellis go.

Despite crossing the line I thought he had another poor game. He only ever seemed to go sideways when he got the ball! I don't think he's been slated on here because Hull seemed to not want to pepper him with the high kicks so he made few handling errors and consequently wasn't as noticeable.

Annakin man of the match for me.

I agree Lynne was poor, but I aren't convinced he's a centre, would be very tempted to move him to the wing! Wouldn't be bringing Lee Smith back in though, Walshaw and Cowling are both very good young players and deserve a chance! In fact I don't see what they did to get dropped in the first place, Cowling went very well against Saints in particular.

Would also be tempted to move Cockayne to hooker he always looks dangerous coming out of dummy half and running at the line.

Bring sam obst back on a temporary contract !

. Danny Houghton is exceptional thats how a hooker should be hes outstadning that lad.

I think Aiton should be switched to loose, washbrook is no longer a shoe-in for that spot. We need more from a loose forward than topping the tackle count, Washbrook has been a shadow of the player he was last season.
The speed and accuracy of the way we shift the ball needs to be sorted and this starts a dummy half, if Aiton is playing this position he needs to take charge and boss this area if we are to get on the front foot, fast play the balls and scooting easy metres. Everything was so slow and laboured yesterday it looked like they had all been on the Ale all weekend.

Surprised i haven't seen anybody mention justin poore, nobody else think we should be seeing a bit more from him?

Annakin was the one stand out for me.

Why mention him out of the whole bunch of them? He is doing just fine for me - soaks up opposition energy.

He was blowing yesterday though - but most were.

Agree on Annakin - contract needed NOW!

We looked jaded yesterday and very static in attack.
Assuming Wood is fit, he should have been on the bench.
He usually gives us some spark of the bench against tired defences.

Overall its been a strange weekend of rugby.
Only Wigan won both of their games with Castleford the only team to lose both, although there were some major blowouts yesterday.
Monday looked like one game too many for us and many others.

I don't see Aiton as anything except hooker. I don't want to stir up arguments about size but I honestly don't think he is big enough for loose forward. I know that position doesn't need a player the size of a prop or second row but I think it demands some size to add to the physical presence of the forwards. Washbrook just looked as jaded as the other players to me yesterday.On his day I think he does ok.

Just seemed as poor as the rest of them yesterday bar an odd couple, don't get me wrong i thought he started off like a house on fire and had/have very high hopes for him - but he seems to have escaped any (constructive) criticism in the main when the majority of others haven't. I think he is getting dragged into trying to show how tough he is rather than doing the little things like winning the floor/ruck, and he contributed significantly to our lack of go forward if that makes sense.

Last cuple of games (inc the cas game) he didn't seem to be in the same form as the first few rounds. Fingers crossed he can kick on from the early season form as i would hope to receive more from my marquee nrl signing than cannon fodder who has conceded more penalties than anybody else in the league without providing a tackle bust, and poore is heading in that diection for me at the moment.

A lack of runners and the same old dolly drops from Aiton. I honestly think Aiton puts Smith under pressure with weak passes and a serious lack of variety in his play. Just leaves Smith as a sitting duck, receiving predictable slow ball

Whilst I've said my piece on Aiton, it is indeed unfair to single him totally out...he just was the most frustrating element of a frustrating effort for me. Trundle up to acting half, bend, lob left, lob right, do nowt else all afternoon...then as I'm walking away p'd off, he's announced as MOM....thought it was a p take to be honest.

Almost right! London??

I think people don't understand what an Aussie No 8 does. They are huge men who are programmed to play two 20 minute spells in a game once a week. He is doing ok in my book but is yet to find a true rhythm - yes he was blowing on his first stint but recovered for a decent 2nd stint, he will get there IMHO.

The runners bit is the key part for me. We lacked runners from depth, even the most basic dolly drop as you put it takes a lot of effort to stop if the man is running on to the ball with pace. You can't blame the hooker for making the half back a sitting duck for not having runners coming at pace - that's crazy.

Aiton's defence is good in traffic, but the way he was rounded for one of the second half tries was woeful.

Pulled off two try saving tackles which is more than most did and missed one which they all did. Raleigh was dreadful yesterday as was Wilkes so a bad day for them all really.

Yes Raliegh nowhere near fit, don't think he was ready at all. Kirkmond seemed to be struggling with a knock through the game and Wilkes made the set. Only really Annakin who showed any real endevour and effort.

As for the reasons why, I don't know. I don't buy the Easter period being the cause as FC had a much tougher game than us on Good Friday and we had the extra weeks rest in the run up which surely must have helped. Maybe we got a bit too big for our boots and switched off after believing the hype about how poor FC are when they still had some very, very good players - and going 10-0 up only made things worse.

Can't say I specifically noticed the try savers, if he did fair play to Poore - can only call on what I saw.

Shame we didn't get the result cos it's going to be very tough in the next 2, Wigan especially.

I would usually go with that. However apart from Wigan most teams seemed to play one good one bad. I'm assuming those who did well on friday had used up all their enthusiasm and those who didn't had a point to prove. It's not an excuse more an observation - we were not alone.

When we scored that second try the Hull players looked totaly down in the dumps if we had scored soon after I feel they would have caved in.Instead through our poor defence they scored and that gave them some fight and appeared to stun us.Fox scored a good try but later juggled with the ball and lost it for them to score I could not belive how he struggled to take that ball the damn thing was in his hands and an 80 year old with a walking stick would have done better.Lets face it we had to many players not up to scratch.I like Aiton his tackeling is normally from the top table but we do have to ask the question are we missing what Ellis brought us at the back end of last season.Certainly makes you wonder that one.

Are you talking about their second try? I'm not sure which game you were watching if you are. Whoever threw that wild pass to Fox wants their head examining. It was from a scrum on our own line, above head height and Fox had 3 defenders in front of him. I can't honestly see what it was going to achieve even if it had have been a decent pass, which it wasn't, not in a million years!

Did we really have to play that well to beat one of the worst Cas teams in a long time? Even with it being the Derby both the crowd and players were fantastically flat and with Rangi playing hide-and-seek for most of the game and their forwards offered little resistance for the most part.

Scorelines would suggest that Bradford, Leeds, Wigan, Salford & Saints all played relatively well in both games (I appreciate that Saints got beat at Wigan but I thought they played fairly well with the personnel on show in the face of what was a very enthusiastic Wigan side) - although I do agree with the general point that the "lower" teams rarely seem to be able to back up after a big effort against one the "better" teams.

Our scoreline suggests we played well, 2 tries difference is hardly a thrashing is it. We are way to hard on ourselves at timeS. We love it when we overcome the odds yet won't accept when others do it to us. We then analyse it to death when in fact it's just one of those games.

As for Cas I don't buy that, you can only play what's in front of you and Cas should be reasonable opposition player for player.

Went the same way from the reformed scrum,Hull were ready for it.Fox was not to blame as it was a horrendous pass from Smith.

The pass was from smith and it was a shocker! I looked at the highlights on ooh choob and it looks like it was meant for collis but either he did not come for the pass, or smith was caught in two minds and chose neither.

Definitely a turning point in the game, but on balance smith will win us more games than he will lose us.