Superb effort from a team with 7 or so players 21 or under.

As a point of arithmetic pedantry though, I'm not sure that average age will have been 21. Either median or mean. Feka and Minichello are both 30+, and Paea can't be far off. Credit to them for supporting the youngsters, and pushing Wigan all the way.

And, to be like a dog with a bone about it, Wigan had several youngsters in their team - I suspect their average age was only slightly higher. I worked it out very roughly, and there wasn't much in it.
It's still Wigan at the DW like, so impressive, nonetheless.

Very proud of the team and the youngsters. Me and my Dad went last night and both of us said we would be happy if they kept it under 50 so was a nice surprise. More fans there than I thought they would be too.

It's ok raving about wigans youngster's but they have had more big game experience than ours

4 of our youngsters last night haven't played a dozen games between them

Absolutely, and I'm not forgetting that when we went there in similar circumstances with Guzdek, Robinson, Esslemont etc it was 60-0.

But average age was a Hull fans-chosen metric.

And I'm just pointing out that although 'team with average age 23 battles valiantly in defeat to team with average age 24' is a less compelling narrative, it is also more accurate.

Great display last night .
Really gave me a sense of pride in the Club .
Abdull , Logan are stars in the making .
Well done to all involved last night .

Nice to see some of our future youngsters playing so well tonight share and share alike

A lot of positives last night, very rarely find myself actually happy after a loss (well relatively speaking), really developing some decent young backs, surprised how confident and composed they were last night. Been a bit of talk about a lack of recruitment in that area but with the massive forward pack we will have and these energetic youngsters who will have a good pre-season im sure, next year we will surely see some success. I guess the other year when Radford and Pearson were saying they would take a couple of years to rebuild the team they were telling the truth!

OK Frankie I'll bite none of them will be in your team next year but in Hull's under 23's , so if you want to see them you'll have to come to the Under 23's .

You don't even get none of our 16s never mind these

Can only add to what everyone else has already said. I was genuinely fearing a 60+ hammering last night and to come so close to an unlikely victory was both heartwarming & heartbreaking at the same time.

Thought Minichello, Houghton and especially Watts were immense with everyone else putting a shift in. Credit also to the coaching staff including Lee Radford for instilling a positive attitude into the team. Lee takes a lot of brickbats when it all goes pear shaped so it's only right he receives credit when it's due.

I have said from the beginning of this phase of the season that all we can hope for is for the team to turn up each week with a good attitude to compete and a willingness to play some decent rugby. Apart from last week they have probably fulfilled that criteria. We'd all like more, but given the current situation a performance like last night has to be applauded. Let's hope we can finish the season at home with a bit of a flourish and then (fingers crossed) see what 2016 will bring us.

I guess we could have gone with a much more experienced team and got bummed 60 nil like rovers did

seems the Club Site got it wrong too, still what do they know?



Lee Radford commended his young Hull FC side after a brave performance last night against Wigan Warriors.

The Black and Whites took on title-challengers Wigan with six academy players and an average squad age of just 21 but almost snatched an unexpected victory.

Two late tries kept Hull in it until the death but they were eventually beaten 30-24.

I suspect somebody off-handedly said the average age of the team was 21 and nobody thought, hang on... and bothered to check. There's also that thing that local youngsters stay younger in people's heads for longer, so people might assume Shaul and Hadley are younger than 23.
Anyhow, it was a very lovely lily of a defeat and I just hate to see you guys trying to gild it with big globs of molten lead.
'Five teenagers in the 17'. You're welcome.

You are right that Wigan's average age was only slightly higher but the difference is that most of Wigan's 'youngsters' are recognised first team players except for Gildart who was playing only his third game. I thought Hull played really well and weren't far from pulling off a win which would have been deserved. What really annoyed me was the patronising commentary from the Sky muppets. They were talking all the way through as though it was inevitable that Wigan were going to rack up a big score and that it was only a matter of time before Hull ran out of petrol. How wrong could they be!

To be fair to Stevo et al, they were singing our praises by the end of the match. Even Phil Clarke was calling for a knock on by Wigan earlier on which left me scratching my head. The first thing Jon Wells said on 80min was something like "hull fc...wow" or words to that effect