Thought it was a good run out for both teams.

Hull need to get there team to gel after a high turnover of staff and they got a good competetive 80 mins, Rovers used this game to blood a few youngsters and also to give the majority of the 1st team a spell on the pitch.

Fc will get better when the team start to think on the same wavelength as Long, there were a few times when he seemd to spot something and had no one there with him. Line defence needs a bit of work but thet'll come with game time.

Rovers will have been happy to see how Cook, Ratu and Hodgeson looked on their debut's, I thought Beaumont looked decent and I'anson played well. think the Bradford friendly will be played more like a SL game in terms of core team and interchanges and will show us more where we are.

Both coaches will be happy with what they saw and will have got what they wanted from the game and more importantly it was a fitting occassion for R.Horne. 16,500 is a fantastic turnout (Diskin only got 5,000 for the Leeds v Bulls game yesterday) and will have whetted everyones apetite for the new season.

Fair comment.

Hull should have won by more points with the chances they blew. That said Rovers played around more with personel than we did so that is to be expected. It's only a friendly and whilst the win is irrelevant, in terms of the new players and the poor season last year it will help with confidence within the team to get the win and will also stop the fans launching at Agar at the first opportunity.

Promising signs but nothing to get carried away about.

I stand corrected which adds to my question of why bloody moan about them then go and play more than any other SL side...I think...I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong again!!!

was a pleasure to see too after two barren seasons from the boot

I must admit to being slightly amazed when Horne put the kick in for the try, obviously Long has been mentoring him in training, hope it continues.

It will be tough, it is a tight competition with lots of teams on a similar level. If though by tough you mean unlikely, then I'd disagree. If Clinton arrives we'll look better on paper than last year, fwiw, and even without him I'd probably still take us to make the 8 at evens (as I would Hull btw).



York and the local amateurs games was/will be reserve friendlies.

Watch the highlight dvds for the last two seasons, Horne has created us plenty of tries with his short kicking game.

Yep - as good as any inside the opposition's 20.

you could clearly see a lot of his off the ball movement and work pushing players around was awesome too

and way before that, he always has had a decnt short kick, its just most of the time its been used from our own half

Plenty in 2004, 2005, and 2006 as well. For some reason this facet of his game is always underrated.

How many, in total?

Dunno not counted them, look at the last 5/6 years and Horney has always kicked well near the line and set up tries for us.

Judging by the other responses on here other people would agree.

I wasn't disputing your observation, just asking how many, I don't really recall Horne having much of a kicking game, yes the odd grubber on the 5th but that's only to be expected, isnt it?

Edited.

If that were even remotely true, then why are we playing 4 out of 5 away from home?

PS Cockayne only out for 2 weeks, I'm sure you are disappointed that he didn't sustain a more serious injury.

and yet they still turned out to support one of your players in his testimonial when they could have played a team and earnt money from it... lets not let facts get in the way of a good yarn tho'....

Not sure any-one on here would wish a serious injury on any rugby player,so good news there....However I am totally disappointed the scum bag is still playing rugby full stop !

Positives:

- Improved (and legal) aggression in the pack.
- Clear signs of more organisation with Long in the side, which I thought increased as the game went on. I've seen/heard comments that he went missing in the 2nd half, but personally although he wasn't as directly involved with his hands on the ball I still thought his influence was noticeable verbally.
- Long also added some improved kicking.
- As the game went on, we actually started to play some rugby.
_ As well as looking a bigger side, we also look quicker.

Negatives:

- I still think our spelling of players needs improving, we leave some on too long. Me and my Dad picked out Manu for this going into half time and sure enough he missed Newton 5 minutes into the 2d half with a lazy arm for a try.
- Still a lingering bad habit of 1-man stuff, but hopefully that will continue to fade away as it did during the game.
- Lauaki's tackling needs work IMO.
- Houghton decision making needs a lot of work IMO.

Overall, the positives outweighed the negatives for me, but it was reassuring rather than exciting.

used to have a decent short game when cooke was playing too

Took them 15 mins to get in to it but when they did was looking good Lauaki's tackling needs a lot off work was expecting more from him will be targeted if not sorted

Agreed. Loaki was slow, Lang needs a haircut and don't even get me started on Howtone!

clover dock