is this what we can expect for the foreseeable future, hull need to rethink match prep or something for derbies. they always say that the prep is just the same as for any other match, well maybe is needs to be shaken up. are we letting the nerves get on top of the players? or are they not being fired up properly? i dont knew. i just want it sorting coz im sick to death of the whole thing. gentle is a good coach imo but he's falling into the same trap as all of our recent coaches of not executing derbies effectively.

I'm pretty sure the difference in enthusiasm between their players and ours is down to Hudgell's influence. Rovers's gates would undoubtedly decline if they began losing in a convincing manner to FC on a regular basis.

A whole portion of their success in their Super League era has been to spite Hull FC. Hudgell knows this as he's instigated the main part of it. So taking into consideration this coupled with his own pride, I wouldn't be surprised that soon as a player arrives at Hull KR, they're immediately indoctrinated in how important the derby games are for the club.

So what I'm saying is, I'm not sure what can be done.

Shaun Wane seems to do the same thing for Wigan. Which seems to work for them as they compete with all other teams, contrary to Rovers. Maybe we should copy what Wigan do before a derby?

I think we've won six of the last eleven competitive derbies and we outplayed them three times last season.

In all fairness we outplayed them under Gentle last season in all 3 fixtures, so I'm not sure why we have played so poorly in the 2 games this year. The Easter game this season was slightly understandable, but Saturday's performance was very disappointing considering our current form and the availability of players.

thats them. im more concerned about our approach. i think we show a grate deal of professionalism in bottling these games

agree and it should have been 3 from 3 last year. and this what hurts, coz i thought we'd tuned a corner but this year clearly show that we havnt

Well it would have been 3 from 3 last year if it wasn't for that useless Ganson. Whatever happened to him?

we don't have to be at our best to beat that sh-t

I thought our defence was on par with our current level, no complaints there but our handling let us down a lot, Horney normally plays well in Derbies but had a stinker and was involved in bombing a couple of tries. Yeamo also dropped a couple of bad ones. I think in some respects, especially for the interception they made for the first try, we were trying to push the pass when it wasn't there.

And we still won! Even without Greens try we should have been two up as it was never a penalty on O'Meley.

Sooner be beating the likes of Wire,Leeds and Wigan than Rovers...although saturday was bloody good.

Why? It is just the same as any other match. Remind me how many more points you get for a derby win?

Maybe we should approach it as our cup final.

Said the same to a Wire fan on Sunday. We need to be looking at beating the bigger teams AS WELL as Rovers etc

i'm more looking forward to us testing ourselves against leeds next time out than i am about games against rovers

but against leeds next week we'll probably play with much more composure. win or loose the team will hopefully stick to a game plan and the team that executes it best will probably win. and if we were mature and peasant in the derbies i think we'd win quite easily. cant believe that people are willing to accept that we are not at the races for theses games. bragging rights aside the 2 points are important.

Let's forget about Rovers. It was 2 points gained if not deserved. However we should be concentrating on how we perform against big clubs not little ones. We will need to play a damned sight better on Friday to get anything out of Leeds.

Rovers always raise their game for the derby, they always see themselves as the underdogs.

We don't handle the pressure well and there seems to be more of it when at the KC/Magic weekend for some reason. We seem to play better at their place as the away side.

I actually think it's more a case of us not being able to cope with being the favourites and the opposition getting into our faces. We are pretty good at getting into the faces of teams that maybe should be beating us on paper (see Warrington last week, the recent Wigan game and I suspect we'll take it to Leeds on Friday). However we've struggled when teams get into us (Rovers twice, Widnes away, and unconvincing performances at Salford/London), we have to realise that teams just won't roll over and they need to be be up for these challenges.

after 8 weeks of good to exceptional performances we had a day when our attack misfired but our defence was as good as ever, think we may be getting carried away a bit, maybe need to wait till after the Leeds game which bear in mind we will be without Horne who has been on fire this season, just had a bad day on Saturday.

Bit of a myth this one, last year we out-enthused and performed Rovers in all three derby and would have won them all if it wasn't for poor reffing and a bad spell.

First derby we were poor, but we didn't have the team and Gentle got his selection wrong.

Last game, we weren't as bad as people are making out, I watched it again, not great first half, but still made 3 good scoring opportunities but was let down by poor handling. 2nd half we dominated and had 3/4 good scoring chances, but once again last pass options were poor. On another day we those passes stick and we win easy. Think Rovers only had 3 chances to score and they took them all, our defence was pretty strong throughout the game also.

I actually thought our defence was quite sloppy for the most part, but we were dragged out of the mire by some decent goal line defence.

I thought they made far too much ground, far too easily. Our line speed seemed quite poor, we fell off a fair few first tackles and we consistently failed to prevent the offload. If we defend like that against Leeds, they will have the attacking prowess to make us pay.

"Defend" like that against L**ds and they'll stick 40+ on us.

I think we try to play down the importance of these games because of the expectation that we should win and the extra pressure in a derby that creates. We looked OK after the 40/20 and try but when Hall intercepted we got nervy and tried too hard. KR as underdogs feed off that - and played well tbf. But that's what derbies are about isn't it?

But the thing is, it clearly isn't the same as any other match. Regardless of whether or not we want to view it that wat or think it deserves to treated different, the opposition are making it so. In that sense we should prepare for Rovers differently in the same way that every team should be prepared for slightly differently. I'm not saying we should make winning those 3 games the priority of our season, but we should still be aiming to win them as we should all games, and Rovers' increased intensity should be something we make ourselves ready for in the same way as we would, say, Brough/Sinfield's kicking games, Tomkins' kick returns, or Warrington's offloading. It's a facet of our opponent's game that we seem to be underestimating/struggling to handle sometimes.