MZH

I agree with this. Whilst I thought it was a really poor performance on the whole, the effort and commitment we showed when it was 24-10 and Warrington were attacking our line continuously was commendable. Previous Hull teams would have capitulated and lost that game by 40 points. At least under Cartwright I know I'm going to see a team that keeps fighting to the bitter end even if the quality of the rugby isn't where it needs to be.

Yeah it was, but Martin has had a few like that where he just doesn't get high enough and his feet come back down before he can ground the ball. Something for him to work on.

If there's one weakness in Martin's game it's that. Got to work on getting off the ground when hew going for the corner like that.

In touch. It's just that sort of day.

Ratchford has very obviously touched that. The ball clearly changes direction.

I'd say Rapana is having a shocker but actually this is just a standard performance from him.

Oh well that's the end of that then.

Woeful try to concede. Let Williams run straight through the middle from a standing start, and then switch off at DH.

If Burgess is happy with that it shows what low standards he's setting.

It's hard to imagine that we can play any worse than this in the second half, so the fact that we are only 2 points down makes me pretty confident.

Yeah I know. The comment about the Ashes was specific to Martin and Barron, who I think will play for England at some stage but this series is just too early.

This Ashes is too early for Martin and Barron (although I'm sure they would do a job if called on) but as someone who watches them week in week out I'd be surprised if both of them don't play for England one day. Not only are they good players but they are great athletes, and that's not all that common amongst England wingers. They are both tall, fast, powerful and have great work rate too. At 20 and 22 respectively you would hope they will only get better too. The rest of the players you mention are really exciting too. What Flanagan has done this year in a struggling team is really impressive and I hope we soon see him playing with some better players around him in a confident team. Pratt looks like he could be something special. We know what Pryce is capable of. Eckersley and Robertson are quality. The depth of young English talent coming through in the backs is as good as I can remember for quite some time.

I hope it doesn't happen, but if Salford do go under and their results are wiped it would certainly give the table a different look. I think for Saints in particular it would be very harmful.

I know all teams look back at the end of the season and rue missed opportunities, but I hope we don’t live to regret the Huddersfield and Leeds defeats. There's no doubt in my mind that we beat Huddersfield if Knight doesn't have his rush of blood. And we really should have seen off Leeds. Win those two and we would currently be sitting in 3rd with a 3 point buffer over Leeds and Saints. Although like I said, all team will have games like that where they feel they really should have won.

The next 3 are critical for Hull's playoff chances. Warrington away followed by Saints and Wakefield at home. Winning all 3 might be a stretch, but if we could I think we have one foot in the playoffs. But even 2/3 puts us in good shape. We then have Wigan away which I see as a free hit, before, on paper, the 2 easiest games of the season against Hudds and Salford at home (Huddersfield are very much resurgent at the moment though). When we learned Asiata was done for 8 or 9 weeks we knew we would just have to grind out the results until his return. We are currently 2/3, if we can see off that period with 6/9 and get Asiata and Pryce back for the run in we will be very happy with that.