Was that another piece of advice from McRae though? He seemed to suddenly change his mind about it all and completely change direction. Think he became aware of things happening such as the Shaul situation and the McDonnell episode, as well as realising that certain players weren't worth the money they were being paid.

It's the old politicians thing isnt it? new govt comes in and spends the next 5 years blaming the old one for everything. comes a time whem you have to stop blaming the previous regime and front up yourself

I agree its another piece of bull crap from Pearson

I said last year that history is written by those presently in power, and I've long been uncomfortable with how much blame Pearson seems to want to apportion to those not around any longer. The longer our malaise continues, the harder I find it to accept, too.

What exactly happened with Shaul/McDonnell? I know that Shaul wasn't getting a game at one point because McDonnell was first choice but isn't that the coach's decision? McDonnell wasn't a bad player IMO.

Wouldn't the contracts be McRae's responsibility as Director of Rugby (was that his role?) though and not Gentle's? I was under the impression player contracts were down to McRae.

What I want to know is who are the certain people at the club letting Radford down.
It cant be players as there is currently no one on the naughty list and frozen out like Ben Crooks last season.
Does he think Ellis and Sa are letting him down because of their regular injuries? Radford did seem to be really peed off with Sa in one of his interviews following the latest injury to Sa.
Does anyone know what Pearson is talking about?

Maybe. Personally, I'd have been inclined to reward 2 6th places with another year to see. Also, given that he claims he made the decision around July time, I do wonder how following up 6th with being on course for similar and the addition of the CC semi-finals at least convinced him we would never do any better, yet living in the bottom 4 for the next season and a quarter and managing back-to-back results a whopping once has him keeping the faith that we're on the right track.

like Adam Pearson but he is deluded in thinking Radford is the man to take the club forward.
It will all come tumbling down if we get stuffed on Thursday.

Just as well we are going to beat them then.

I still think he should have been much more wise to this during the event rather than after, if it is to the extent that he seems to suggest. He still had his own wage bill available to consult as a guideline. The one that sticks out to me is Arundel. Regardless of how much Pearson does or doesn't know about RL, if Arundel was given a contract considerably more expensive than Yeaman, Pearson should have been savvy enough to seriously question it. One was a player in his prime years, with England and GB caps to his name, the other was up and coming but had only got as far as the England Knights, and also coming off the back of a major knee injury. For comparison, it would be similar to Liverpool offering Will Hughes more money than they're paying Lallana or Henderson, if Hughes had also been out injured for the past 18 months.

it may not be players letting radford down on purpose just occasional dumb plays .Against cas luke gale scored a try as one of our forwards (no names) run with his back to the play.there was the dumb play against catalan just on half time. Dumb plays or inexperience but certainly no lack of effort

These dumb plays I believe Radford continually refers too as game smarts.
These same issues are the same as last year so playing wise we continually make the same mistakes and continue with the same one dimensional play.
Whatever these contract issues were I don't believe there is anyone at the club any longer who these apply too. We have a squad assembled by Radford so no blame can be apportioned to anyone else regarding how poor we are again or cannot afford better players.
The pay offs to former players will have effected Pearson 's pockets but not the salary cap.
To me what has gone has gone and should no longer effect us going forwards any longer.
To me it sounds like Pearson defending Radford and his continual appointment of him.
When I spoke to Pearson and questioned Radfords coaching ability he would only allude to the fact that Radford had done a lot if good work behind the scenes without saying what and that he believed in Lee as a coach.
So for me now there are no players and no staff at the club that could be blamed and it just sounds like continued hot air.

It's difficult to disagree with what you're saying and it really would be interesting to hear his thinking behind it.

I just remember walking out of the HJ stadium after the playoff game in 2012 genuinely believing we were going somewhere (despite defeat). Roll forward two and a bit years and we've been humiliated at Wembley, then in the playoffs and have been languishing in the bottom 4 for the last 18 months.

Well if Radford is being let down and its not the players it can only be the supporters. What a bad lot we are!!

We nearly lost Shaul for the sake of £5k instead Gentle wanted to extend SMc's contract.

Pearson obviously feels it's the players.

We remain a dumb team. We seem to have been the dumbest team for years and I can only think that it stems from a lack of professionalism somewhere in the set up. I said during the Agar years that we rarely seemed "on our toes" and energised we just have a plodding demeanour for much of the time and it's seen in our play the ball , getting off the floor and back into the line after making a tackle and , as you say , having your back to the play when defending. We get busted well up the field more often than not rather than on our line where we scramble well and work hard. If we make 2 or 3 dumb mistakes where we switch off or turn away , stand at the wrong side of the ruck etc in a game it can be enough to lose us the game against an average team because of our as yet inability to score more than 3 tries generally. Against a good side like Leeds we just handed the momentum over. We switch off just before half time , we're not ready after half time , we're unprepared for the "lesser" teams , we substitute a player just after he's given a try away because he's knackered rather than when he first displays signs of fatigue and we seem to have been doing it for years. It's why we generally all like a player like Rankin because he does seem different and has a buzz about him. Doesn't make someone a great player but if it's not there they'll never be one.

The late,great Jack Gibson once said:

"The way you play, is a true indicator of the personality of your Head Coach"

Your right they do. Throughout the history of Football and Rugby the top managers do not get "let down" by players! How many times did you hear the likes of Ferguson or Shankly say they were let down by players?? Great coaches/managers motivate and find a way to get the best out of each individual and mould a winning team, Radford at this level is incapable of this. We are back in the Agar nightmare, no doubt in my mind about that.

Without getting all wishy washy and deep thinking about it - it's the culture letting Radford down, and he's part of it.

We've changed the owner, we've changed the coach, we've gone through several dozen players and the problems are the same. That tells me it's not an individual - although as Radford has followed this culture through as a player, coach and now head coach I don't see how he can possibly be the man to change it - but a collective culture that is the problem.

A culture is hard to quantify but the certain aspects and ingredients of it I see with our club are...

- we talk like a big club. It wasn't that long ago we had a dilapidated stadium (which we loved) and 5-6000 at home Super League games. I remember we won something like five of the first six around 1999 time and we subsequently got 7,000 in for Warrington at home (which we lost) and it was considered a big deal. The stadium, and the fantastic support, lulls us. We talk like it's inevitable that it will turn in our favour, and we don't have to work for it. We still blame referees. We don't fight for every point, fight for every loose ball. We concede penalties as if we won't be punished. We play out sets on opponent's lines expecting something to open up, without ever actually coming up with something brilliant ourselves to make it open up. Radford's "tactics" and this much vaunted "play book" we share with Doncaster (the poor bstrds) seem to be little more than "complete your set, get to the kick" and as long as our completion is high we'll win. It's like we're Hull FC, so they'll wave us in eventually. There's an arrogance. Paea said it when he signed, Hull FC are perceived as arrogant.

- We reward mediocrity. We pay excellent money to the players regardless of the results. When they fail, we pay them off - we have to, because no other club is stupid enough to pay them what we pay them. We pay players more than better clubs to get them here . Our geography works against us in that, but still. Tom Briscoe is paid less now at Leeds than he was here, because to play for Leeds is a big deal. It should be a blddy big deal to play for Hull. We should offer the same wage everybody else is offering and if they don't come, did we want that player anyway? Every year on here I see a clamour to get contracts renewed and in some cases I can see why but in most, why do we have that? These players are achieving nothing, every year. Why the rush to get new deals handed out? It can only be the fear that, like so many, they go somewhere else to a different culture and look alright and make us look daft. Why on earth would we be happy that we've rewarded Liam Watts with a new contract? He's been dog chocolate since he got here. A shadow of the player he was at HKR.

- We have a good portion of our squad, every year, commuting in, every day, from Leeds, Bradford and Castleford. We had a game postponed last year because of a traffic accident on the M62 which meant half our starting 13 was stuck on the motorway. You're representing Hull. You should live in Hull and breathe it like the people who pay your wages. It's not a big commitment to make, but then neither is tackling Scott Taylor 10 yards away from the line when you've got four team mates to help you and we can't do that either. Driving in, running about a couple of hours, driving back, driving in, losing 7-0 at home to Widnes, driving back. It's like a day job. And it needs to be so much more than that.

- The players know, as we saw with Gentle, that they can down tools and get the coach sacked if they don't like him much. Saw it with Kear, saw it with Sharp, saw it with Gentle. Whatever perceived mess Gentle left us in, I'd have been more inclined to stick with him after the Huddersfield debacle than not simply to show the players you are not downing tools and getting another coach the sack. Any coach who comes in here and says you're not drinking that much, you're not smoking that much, you live in the city that's paying your wages and it's not good enough to continue losing games as long as you keep the scores close knows that this group of players might down tools and he'll get the sack if they do - or at least that's what's happened before. They need the biggest rocket we can find shoved up them and they need the fires of hell burning inside them, but anybody who tries to do that to them might get the sack if they think he's a bit shouty or a bit hardline.

- lack of professionalism, on and off the field. The Catalans try at half time, the Castleford try straight from the start of the second half, the first ten minutes at Salford - if they were one offs then fine, but collectively they're indicative of a total lack of professionalism.

I always thought Radford was one of the worst exponents of all this when he played for us second time around. Bang average player, a captain who never said anything, silently stood behind the posts blowing out of his ars after conceding tries, a conceder of cheap penalties late in sets for blatant fouls, but rewarded and lauded constantly. We need to aspire to better than him as a player, better than him as a captain and better than him as a coach. Instead we renew his contract every year, and panic at any suggestion that he and the other players like him might not renew, then we make him the coach, then we make him the head coach and simply tell everybody we're better.

What's needed, IMHO, is a top class, hardline, modern thinking, no-nonsense coach. A total outsider, who can bring a professional pride and culture from elsewhere (because there's none of it here) and instill it into us - as Maguire did when he arrived at Wigan. I like the 'club Hull' idea, I really do - bringing our own youngsters through is producing great talent and it's long overdue. But they're coming into this culture where mediocrity is rewarded and it's all out for light ales after training even if we've lost three on the spin. Such coaches don't come cheap, but it will cost Pearson more in the long run if he doesn't pay it now.

Problem is, cultures are deeply ingrained and difficult to change. Players difficult to shift, replacements difficult to find, good practice and standards of behaviour take time to bed down. And we don't have time, because we've pisd so much of it away and there is no good will left in the support base.

Anyway, sorry, that was long, carry on.

Regarding changing a culture in a club:

One thing, which shouldnt be done, is giving jobs to people who
were part of the fabric of the previous regime.

What is required, is a full clearout of coaching staff,conditioners etc..

Top drawer post - objective, articulate and on the money.

Starting to think Pearson has lost the plot! Obviously I don't expect him to start berating his coach in a fans forum, but I'm sick and tired of this blaming McRae and Gentle for everything game. Radford has had 18months in charge (with years before that obviously as coach and assistant) and there is not even the slightest glimmer of hope that we are getting better.

Of the team that took to the field at Cas only 3 were Gentle/McRae signings! (Paea, Thomson, Watts) the rest are either players who were already at the club or Radfords signings. Even if you factor in injured players only Ellis is a Gentle signing. So this deflection of blame simply doesn't wash.

Then there's the vague 'people letting the club down' line, he's owned the club 4 years in July, why hasn't he sorted the culture out?

I recon Pearson took a back seat in such matters, and left it all to McRae and Gentle.

2 out of those 3 players, ie Watts & Thompson were given extended contracts under Lee Radford.... and Paea is due to start contract talks soon.