Think everyone can see that and with the two we have I don't see them playing much more than they have this year (although Long has been unlucky)

If we do not recruit a halfback for next season we won't do well.

Agree....mind you s0ds law we will recruit and Longy & Horney will both have injury free cracking seasons

Maybe I read too much into it then, fair enough.

I'd say we're harder to break down this year, but once you've figured out how (getting the ball wide quickly) you can score points for fun and we won't change anything to stop you.

No worries, think we are all a bit touchy right now.

Correct. Which is why we now need to move on and going from being a hard to beat team. We have to become a more dangerous and expansive team whilst still retaining that toughness/hard to beat attitude.

Do you mean 'Multitasking'?

I think everyone is hurting now paul thats all mate!!

However on the subject lets look at it in reality...
prior to this season we had a squad that was seriously lacking in any sort of grunt so the club fixed that by bringing in the likes of hame, Moa, Fitz and Omeley which added to Cussack and Radford etc geve us a very strong pack indeed, as good as anyone else to be fair....
however in spending the cash available on those players it meant SL was in reality the only other star quality player we were going to get and in fairness given the other players we had he seemes at the time like a cracking buy and just what we needed to push the big units around the park ... then the injury jinx hit us all over again with him and Horne which in reality is 80% of the "smart plays" sat in the dressing room injured isnt it??
and in reality left us with a huge juggernaut of a pack that was left with no thought process to guide them hence it became route one rugby much of the time and so our pack tried to do too much and tired quickly and hence we lost some we really should have won and looked jaded at times with Fitz, houghton and Omeley doing more hours than they should have !!
Non of the above is anyones fault but merely the result of circumstance due to a lot of injurioes to key players and nothing more... then we got long and horne back too late and with no match practice and it showed , and the plan went totally out of the window with the so called injury to hall and from that moment the writing was on the wall!!

We will next year have both SL and RH fit and recovered properly from all knocks again so both will seem like new players next term as they have not featured much this term have they so thats a good thing, we have new smart blood in on the wing to compliment Young Tom which will make a kick chase a more viable option again, Berrigan in the centres and of course the return of RW whom makes us always look a better team when playing..
there will be new faces before next year and one or two old faces will depart so there is a shake up of sorts but before the knee jerks and hangings begin think about the fact we can only spend money we have on players available... if we aint got the money we cant entice the players and even when we have got the dough does that mean they are all going to want to jump ship and come to Hull??? no it does not..

What i would say is wait and see what the board and RA do next for new blood as they have not done so badly thus far with bringing big names to FC so give them a chance and remember we are only 1 year into the clubs 5 year plan to put it back where it should be!!!

Wether you like RA or not the fact is to have reached the playoffs is infinately better than last year and the year before, new faces and skills can only push onwards and upwards.. and lets be fair we could have done much worse again !!
lets see who comes in before next year and who goes!!

A good post.

It's like I said earlier we got a big pack together and basically said we are going to be tougher and harder to beat. The loss of our halves meant we lacked any real creativity and without cover next season could be the same if either SL or RH get injured again.

RA has helped us become competitive again and we now have a pack that will compete with the best. What we need are better/more ball handlers to exploit the space created by our pack and to feed the ball to our exciting backs like Tansey, Sharp, Lyne and Briscoe. I think a halfback, possibly a hooker and a prop would do us about right.

Sums it up for me. All that has happened this season is that our game plan has been to use this so called massive pack to steam roller over teams and it's turned some likely close defeats into close wins. Fair enough, however it doesn't smack of a great change in our game plan to me.

I'm also at a loss to remember many occassions where we have actually been far and away better in the forwards than the opposition. To me our pack lacks pace and guille. It's all about trying to smash it up down the middle and force teh opposition into submission. It's why when we do win it's by narrow margins. This myth about our so called massive, aggressive pack is purely a myth

"So called injury to Hall"??????

Absolutely right. We've been pushed around by supposedly inferior/smaller/younger packs on many occasions and on Saturday there was only Moa winning collisions. Our forwards often just look tired to me apart from the ones we take off - Moa , Lauacki - of course who tend to be fresh!!!??

Who are the players that are going to do the off the ball running to make space by holding up the oppositions defensive line for our 3/4s though ?

Well that's for the coaches to sort out, it's not rocket science, well at least it shouldn't be.

Surely that is the first step, turn the close defeats into wins and start climbing the ladder in terms of places. Having done that this season we now have to take the next step of being able to expand on that style of play and start dominating teams and winning games more compfortably. That's the challenge to RA and the team.

If it's not rocket science then why are we 2 1/2 into agar's reign and it still isn't happening?

Agreed. How are we likely to do that with basically the same forwards we have now?

do you see him as a permanant fixture in the centre next year?i would go with that personally,we have looked better out wide with him there,just dont think agar will do this tbh......

Why do we need a 5 year plan, when it can be done much quicker by getting a real head coach?

Wigan and Warrington did it in one season!

Until, this basic facet of our attacking play is drilled into the players,
successfully, - it doesnt matter if we signed Thurston and Lockyer!!

Sorry, but Agar has had time to implement this, and is clearly unable
to deliver.

We will only improve, when we sign a better coach - not changing and chopping players season after season.

I agree its why I really like Wigan's youngsters as it is clear it has been drilled into them that they have to push up on everything. I don't think we have the mobility or work ethic for players to be willing to push up on every play which is what you see the best teams doing.

There were quite a few instances in Saturdays game when it simply went from Houghton to Long to Washbrook to Tickle to Berrigan to Lyne with no runners at all and the speed which this was done at was embarrassing to say the least.

Absolutely agree, but it sums up our whole attitude IMO. We seem to want to do just enough to scrape a win. So many examples of this, not only the high proportion of wins by slender margins, but targeting certain games (or otherwise, eg Wigan at home), switching off against Harlequins away at half time. We never go all out for 80 minutes to really thrash the opposition. Look at Saints v Rovers -if they'd got all their kicks Saints would have had 78 points that day against a top 8 side. I just can't see us with the current squad and coach having either the ability or appetite to deliver that.

Cons:
1, We are still a poor attacking side. When adding in that prior to being head coach he was supposedly our attacking coach, this looks very much like it can be laid at his door. We are at turns disorganised, disinterested, and/or stupid. We have far too few players with genuine rugby brains, a poor kicking game, and as soon as we come under any pressure revert straight back to one out rugby.
2, We have no flexibility in our approach to games. If things are not going our way we still don't/can't change anything and the game continues to drift away from us. This is a key area for winning a trophy, as all available have a knockout stage where we can't pin our hopes on fixing it for next time.

I think Agar has done very well this year he has taken the team to a play off place 6th but for the majority of the season a very respectful 4th . That is without the advantage of having a settled half back partnership . Recruitment policy needs to be questioned in my opinion as giving Long a two year contract at his age has not been a sensible option. Also signing players like Cusack are not of the same standard as really good imports like Kearney, Swain and Jasom Smith .

Berrigan , Long, Fitzgibbon, O' Mealey all have the big game experience and it should of been down to them to change the game . Long went missing big time and his kicking game was very dissapointing.

Weren't both long and horne injured for most of last season as well? May be some kind of pattern emerging here