Cunningham all around game is excellent, I think he will make a better hooker than Houghton, think he will get a few games this year and step in next year.

We've never replace swain properly and has had a far greater impact on us than losing and not replacing cooke

That's a moot point but the importance of a hooker that's intelligent, can manage the game and has the skills to move the ball quickly and accurately to the right players at the right time has rarely if ever been better demonstrated than by Cameron Smith. He's a freak but he's what we should be aiming at.

Don't even know we're to start with that, Surley it's a wind up?

Dig up the assist stats for the seasons 03-07, find the season review DVDs for these periods, pretty much everything we did was through Cooke, and it was successful. When we lost and didn't replace Cooke we overnight turning into a different team, and still 7 years later don't like recovering.

Swain was a brilliant player, smart and an absolute workhorse, but didn't have as much as a direct impact on the huge percentage of Hulls try's that Cooke did.

You might want to watch a few of those games again and take a look at why Cooke had the freedom to play like he did.

Swain was every bit as important to that side as Cooke. Arguably more so but not definitely.

Sorry I'm not having that, that's not a slight on Swain or doubting the influence Swain had on Cooke, but our downfalls biggest factor was losing Cooke. It's all opinion but I think it's safe to say lack of creativity, someone who can find a pass to convert possession into going over the line is what Hull have missed the most.

Stats don't tell the full story by any means, but if you class 04, 05 and 06 as our best period of the past decade as I would, Cookes assist stats are:

04-21
05-29
06-24

Like I say don't tell the full story, but then again think of the number of try's set up by Cooke on that left hand side that he didn't directly assist, and what offered with his kicking game his influence was huge.

The closest any other Hull player to this in terms of assists was Dykes in 2008 with 13 I believe, when you consider this and our general lack of creatively and ability to score try's since Cooke left, it's hard in my opinion to say that any single factor contributed more to our downfall then losing Cooke's creativity (and more importantly not replacing him), however good a player Swain was, which is not in question, he was a beast.

When Cooke played for us at his best and perhaps against us he was one of the most efficient and effective players I've seen. Just about everything he did brought a better than average return. He had a very sharp rugby brain which put him in the right position most of the time and he was able to get that over to those around him as well. His arrogance helped him to shrug off any mistake that he did make and just move on to the next thing whilst carrying on firing out the orders. Hugely influential when with us and hugely missed.

Not a wind up, but my opinion. cooke was a very important player for us and has been badly missed since, however, swain carried that team and created the go forward that players like cooke needed. It's no coincidence that cooke's career went down the pan when he didn't have that calibre of hooker to play off for the rest of his career.

Can see we're your coming from but think Cooke's personal issues and the pressure of the move are why his career went down the pan.

It sounds like I'm underating Swain here, which I'm not but for a hooker to have that kind of influence he'd have probabally had to have been the greatest of all time, Cooke could find that cut out pass as good as anyone I've seen, sure speed of distribution from DH would have helped but he'd still have that ability even if someone else was at dummy half, It would be like saying the likes of Cronk, Slater, Inglis would not be good at what they do without Cam Smith, for me it's just top players working well together, in the same way that Swain, Cooke and Horne worked well together in that period, Cooke's contribution to that side was never replaced.

Like I say Swain was a top player, was adored at Melbourne too, but I think most would agree that his influence was down to his defence, leadership and reading of the game, rather then a direct attacking influence, I'd even say in that sense, a fully fit Richard Horne was more influential to our attack.

cooke was a good quality club player but no more. Swain was a world class hooker who had far more to his game than defence and leadership abilities. Go back and watch some of the games

I'm not denying he had more to his game, and in the context yes he was a world class hooker, and Cooke was a flawed player, but honestly watch the games from this period and honestly say that he had a bigger impact then Cooke, almost everything was through him we were so one dimensional really.

A similar analogy would be the old Manu/Ellis comparisons, hands down Ellis is a world class player respected much more in the game then Manu will ever be, Manu had his faults, but in terms of attacking influence on the side Ellis didn't, and won't have the same impact Manu did.

From 2004-2007 Swain was our best player but Cooke was the most important.

This ^^

Summed up exactly what I've gone a long way round in saying! Spot on.

That Cooke still hasn't been replaced properly is why we've been so poor over the years.

In your opinion but in mine you're wrong. We've had good half backs since but never had a hooker anywhere near swain's quality and never been anywhere near as good.

Like I said, cooke never got within a million miles of his Hull form after he left. Part of that was, undoubtedly down to his off field issues but a big chunk of it was that he just was never as good as you believe he was.

Are you him or a relative?

The issue now is that we have no vision or go forward from hooker when houghton is on the field. A good hooker gets a team on the front foot and gives half backs like cooke the space to do what they do.

I'm not saying that cooke wasn't good for us, because he was but IMO we've never had the go forward from hooker that any top side needs since swain left. When he was here he made donkeys like thackeray and dowes look like world beaters because he was controlling things

Agreed on that, although to be fair Berrigan was exactly this type of player out of dummy half, rated even higher then Swain but in that Agar side nobody was even on the same wavelength, criminal how his time here will probabally go unnoticed through no fault of his own, the slide had just kicked in so badly by then, all over the part not just in the halfbacks.

For me though we've still missed that type of player who would top the assist charts ever year, like a Chase, Briers or Brough who seem to do this year in year out, and dare I say it even Dobson.

Regrettably this is just so , so true. Regrettable because it isn't going to change anytime soon. Houghton's fireproof credentials of being a Hull lad and utterly committed to the cause will mean that we will only ever be looking to recruit a number 2/bench hooker and not the type of acting half you describe. Unless another "Hull lad" comes through and as someone said earlier maybe Cunningham will?

Young Brad Parker is very good out of dummy half and gets his team on the front foot he will be one to watch for FC his style is very much like Roby, hope he keeps progressing & earns a full time contract.

berrigan spent most of his time with us either injured or having to fill in at half back. As you say, criminal waste of a top talent who must really regret coming over here at his peak.

I think we both agree that cooke and swain were very good for us. The way I look at it is that with houghton at hooker, cooke wouldn't have been as good whereas swain would have made any half back look better because they would have had more space and time which for me means he is the one we really have never fully replaced and that has had more of a negative impact

I feel the same. Whilst I think houghton has some great qualities, he isn;t a top class hooker but, as you say, he's untouchable

In this thread I was one of the 1St to criticise Danny
Feel it's gone to far the other way now. He has limitations but each season he seems to improve slightly in the areas he needs to. When the rest of the team is so disjointed and out of sync attack wise it's sometimes made him look worse.
We need to play to his strengths which for me would mean him coming off the bench and bringing his energy and running game after Aaron has hopefully got some momentum into our forwards.
Danny went away from his running game to much last year and spent to much time trying to be a pivot!

And massively in agreement about Berringan, criminal how he was wasted here.

It is about balance there's no doubt. I have no criticism of Houghton because he does everything to the absolute best of his ability. What's frustrating is hearing all of the praise above and beyond those qualities he has and the mythology that's created. As you say he has his limitations , there has been some improvement in some areas but he's not suddenly going to become Cam Smith or anywhere near and I worry that as long as he's here we're never going to consider having a better player in his position. In my opinion because that role is so vital to the way a team plays that's a handicap that we're having to work around all of the time and it's especially difficult to do that with the pivots we've had , or haven't had , recently.

I think that works both ways - is he really so bad? Too many opinions become facts.

Houghton is very good imo he is in a position what is involved in a lot of the game possibly the most important on the pitch, its one what needs good players around him to compliment his work like cam smith,cronk,slater.