just watched the highlights of the bradford v wakey game and whilst bradford scored some good tries, it has to be said there was some truly shocking tackling attempts from the wakefield side so the large margin of victory owed as much to wakey's errors as bradfords good play. in fact though i've only seen highlights, all of the games seemed to show some pretty poor defensive efforts. hopefully we can put this down to the early season

FC smarting over last weeks loss at leeds, bradford brimming with confidence after totally destroying a surprisingly very poor, semingly complacent wakefield team (by observation) and will want revenge for the total utter and complete mullering you gave us at Odsal at the end of last season! hard to call this one, whoever gets on top and in front by a couple of scores first will win, hopefully us!

Which all suggests it should be quite an interesting game...!

I doubt any Bulls fan is expecting to come across anything like such a shambles of an opposition pack as we did on Sunday. Santa only comes once a year, after all. Friday will be a very much bigger ask.

Agree with that but the issue I have is our attack was appauling. Hardly any line breaks and no offloads. Leeds defence was excellent but if we don't improve we will lose as Bulls have points in them.

We should win the game if we play well.

I have them down as deffo top 6 IMO paulm

Ive got a sweepstake running on the first time Briscoe gets Booed or told to F Off to Oz ,

12 mins is mine

First time he makes any kind of mistake.

No idea about the wakefield game but Bradford played really well against us (Leeds) in the pre season game, they were fit, fast and up for the game, far from the number maker uppers they were last year.

Do i have to take the warmu up into account, this could prove tricky

knowing some on here it would include him getting on the bus ffs

Crooks in for Ellis:

Hull FC squad: Arundel, Briscoe, Crookes, Crooks, Galea, Green, Heremaia, Holdsworth, Horne, Houghton, Johnson, Lynch, McDonnell, O’Meley, Pitts, Seymour, Westerman, Whiting, Yeaman

Disappointed that Tickle still isn't back.

I'd go with a big starting pack in this one, so would bring Johnson into the 13 from last weekend to start at loose forward with Galea on the bench.

That also gives us better opportunities to rotate Whiting and Westerman for 20 minutes each to stop them getting burnt out.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a must win. But I won't be happy going to Saints on the back of a loss. We could then quite easily be 0 from 3.

With Warrington at home up next. I think it's as close to a must win as there can be at this time of the season, especially with how last week went and the next couple coming up.

Exactly. The pressure would then be on. I would feel a lot better going to Saints being on the board.

Green should start. Outstanding at the back end of last season, great game v Leeds on Friday. We need some size up there. Johnson looked ok to me, but what does he really give us, a bit like pitts, too small for prop and we have better in the 2nd row.

Seymour is lucky to be in the 19! Struggling to think of a worse scrum half we have had. This is based on last year not his appalling performance last Friday.

I'm no fan of Seymour but what have we got to replace him? I don't subscribe to the Heremaia at half-back theory. I'd much rather have him at hooker with Houghton.

Tickle not back for at least another fortnight. Ellis to see the surgeon again tomorrow (that alone doesn't sound good) no word on his length of time out as yet.

appalling performance really? he did better then some and tackled his heart out until about 60 mins. bit more protection from the forwards and Seymour and holdsworth will be good together this year and tbh he was the only one out of him and holdsworth trying things and looking eager on Friday.

Agree seymour always tackles his heart out,admittedly he needs to show more in attack,but think he will come good, lets get behind the bloke,

Thought he and Green were our best forwards last week, tbf.

I'd go with:

McDonnell
Crookes
Arundel
Yeaman
Briscoe
Holdsworth
Seymour
Johnson
Heremaia
Lynch
Whiting
Westerman
Pitts

O’Meley
Green
Houghton
Galea

Totally agree. Heremaia isn't the answer at halfback, so why weaken hooker as well?

TBF to Seymour we were that slow at PTB and the forwards were being beaten by the Leeds pack made it very difficult for Seymour or Holdsworth to do a great deal at all as they were closed down so quickly.

The tactics that McDermott employed worked a treat (eg running at Seymour all night) in a similar way to how the tactics Gentle used last season against Leeds at the KC work well for us.

We need to give the Holdsworth/Seymour partnership time to work, Heremaia is not the answer. I think what did show up on Friday was how much we miss the impact of Sam Moa coupled with the absence of Watts.

As for this Friday against the Bulls we need to be ready to play from the off and get in the faces of the Bulls and improve our speed at PTB and passing in general which was laboured.

Absolutely. Heremaia provided some spark when he came on Friday night, all from acting-half. To me, him playing at half-back is just another patch-up.