What we have produced so far is just about borderline acceptable. We have put in a handful of good performances but also embarrassed ourselves a few times. I know you can only beat what's in front of you as they say, but I can't help but feel we are only in this position by default due to other teams problems. Wakefield and Cas have had it just as bad if not worse with injuries, and don't have the resources we do, yet are ahead of us. The quality across the league is poor and third place is there for the taking.

Not impressed but not too disappointed either. At least we are there or there abouts, but we need to find another gear in the second half of the year.

Great summary. Shaul, Sneyd, Connor, Griffin, Carlos (and maybe Kelly) signed up, good nucleus of backs there. The forwards needs some serious work but it's underway. As you say Top 5 would be an achievement, certainly beyond what I expect.

Alright then, you say top 5 would be beyond what you expect, so that suggests you think at least 5 teams are better than us (or at least should be better than us). Which 5? And considering we finished 3rd in 2016 and 2017, why would you suddenly be so happy with 5th?

We certainly do, question is whether we have one. IMO we have the backs/halves. Our forwards need to find something we haven't seen yet this year though.

Saints
Warrington
Castleford
Wakefield
Catalans

I never said I would be "so happy" with 5th, I said it would be more than I expect. As said, we have the backs/halves but Taylor carried our pack last year and continues to do so. Our props as a group, particularly if you discount Bowdeb and Green as no-shows, are just not a match for other sides in that list and we need a platform. Let's not reopen the Watts wound but...

How would it?

Saints and Warrington goes without saying. They simply have better players than us. The Castleford squad is similar to ours in terms of quality, but Powell gets the best out of them. So I agree with those three. In pre season when we were making predictions they were my top 3. Injuries could derail Castleford, they have had some poor results themselves, but so far they are doing ok.

Catalans blow hot and cold. They beat the top 2 but have looked like a championship side at other times. Given that they always struggle away from home I would be disappointed if we end up behind them. Again their squad is comparable to ours in quality.

Wakefield just simply shouldn't be expected to be ahead of us. I don't really like the phrase "accepting mediocrity" that gets thrown around on here, but I can't understand how you can be expecting to finish behind Wakefield and be content with that. Chester has done a great job with them and there are some players there that would walk into our team. But they don't spend full cap, they play in a wreck of a ground with modest support, they have a squad comprised mostly of cast offs who failed elsewhere (we are one of the bigger contributors here) and they currently have a worse injury situation than we do.

Personally I consider 5th to be our minimum target. If we can't do that despite some big clubs having terrible seasons then we have failed, and questions have got to be asked.

That is absolute rubbish. All I and many others want is for our club to be successful, indeed for a club with our support level in the premier uk competition we are arguably quite unsuccessful. Every time we seem to be about to achieve it all goes downhill. Winning the challenge cup is great but to be the best you have to win Super League, we are currently where Saints where a few years ago (seen as it was mentioned earlier), good players but inconsistent and needing that magical ingredient, Saints went and got their magical ingredient and backed him with top level recruitement, FCs management always seem to shop in the 'cross our fingers and pray' store ala Lee Radford, indeed he sort of got us there, then the inconsistency crept back in along with poor signings - for next season if we sign mediocre players and Radford doesnt show big improvement (which hes not shown hes able to do so far) then we'll almost be back at the level we were at the end of Gentles tenure over five years since that ended

you would of been closer to third if St's hadn't rattled as points in as they did, look forward to next week

Joint 3rd lol
We are way behind the Top 4 and Cats could argue they should be above us

We’ve had a bigger demolition done on us than we did to Rovers and they are garbage
What does that say about us
GARBAGE

If you think joint 3rd (5th out of 12) is good enough then you must love being average
However middle of the road people eventually get run over !

Because there’d be no reason to come on here.

Thanks!

LR is astoundingly worried about how good Saints and Wire are

Catalans forwards are better than ours as a group IMO and they do exercise home advantage. I hear you on Wakey but they've been knocking on the door of top 4 a while and I love the mix of their squad - big no nonsense forwards, pacey backs, shrewd halves. Pre season I thought Wigan would be up there - not unreasonable - whereas we had diluted our forwards with selling Watts mid season, Mini and Manu a year older, Bowden and Green out long term. I don't believe my opinions are as unreasonable as you think they are.

Nope. You're 5th.

because they support rovers

I can think of Lyne and Miller, that's about it, Miller is injured but I'll definitely give you Lyne
Apart from those 2 I can't think of anybody else that's been anywhere near Hull, but I could be wrong.
Today's squad featured 9 players born and played mostly within the WF postcode, I know its not about postcodes but even if you include injured and fringe players, still nobody's been near Hull I don't think ?

We trained Hadley up into one of the form 2nd rowers in the comp and you've destroyed him! I do not understand the coaching ethos at HFC.

In addition to the two you've mentioned , I think he's probably talking about Danny Brough and Joe Arundel.

For what it's worth I think Wakey (as mentioned by someone else) have a great blend of big forwards and powerful/rapid backs, with creativity in the halves. That coupled with what seems a great team ethos and Chezzy's coaching appears to be a good formula.

You can't claim DB...he was a Wakey cast off before he was anyone else's cast off.

Ahh, well, both of them are injured but there is no doubt they've made a positive contribution at Wakey, quite how much credit Hull can take for that, I dunno.
We're gonna take credit for Ellis though...lol

But it shouldnt have been a transitional season.
Poor recruitment has made it the season it is.
Radford has to take the responsibility for that.
We had the platform from two Challenge Cup wins to kick on but poor decisions starting with the Watts fiasco have seen us on the end of several huge losses.
Once you build a platform for success the sign of a good coach and management is to keep it going.
Radford has failed and now we will have a huge turnover of players in preparation for next season which should include several of the fringe/reserve players who are just not good enough.

Does the above then mean next season becomes another 'transitional' as the new signings need a season to settle in ?
That's what a lot of posters are saying on here as the reason for mediocre results etc this season
Jam tomorrow syndrome

So am I the only one who still thinks we're gonna win Super league this year?

This post will age very well.

Joint third worst defence in Super League too. Warrington away in three weeks.