HAS any Super League side recruited better than Hull FC for the 2025 season?
That was the obvious question to ask after witnessing their win over Leigh on Thursday night.
Hull had a disastrous season in 2024, but this season they have a great chance of breaking their abysmal run of seasons without finishing in the play-off places.
They last squeezed into the play-offs in 2020, but in 2021 they finished eighth and then declined by one position each season until they finished in eleventh place last year.
It’s ironic that they targeted Leigh players in 2024 for recruitment in 2025, bringing John Asiata, Zak Hardaker, Tom Briscoe, Oliver Holmes and Ed Chamberlain to the MKM Stadium, while also recruiting the vastly experienced Aidan Sezer and Jordan Rapana from the NRL, as well as Cade Cust and Amir Bourouh from Salford.
And since the start of the season they have also recruited Will Pryce from Newcastle Knights and Liam Knight from the Canterbury Bulldogs, with both signings having undeniably strengthened the Hull squad. I was amazed that the Knights, whose attack looks very limited this season, allowed an attacking weapon like Pryce to depart their club. But their loss was Hull’s gain.
Sezer was the crucial recruit on the field, as we saw from his performance on Thursday night and as we’ve seen several times this season.
But even more important seems to have been the recruitment of John Cartwright as the coach for this season.
Cartwright has brought an air of calmness, stability and experience to the job just when those qualities were needed after the previous season’s disasters.
After his eight seasons as head coach of the Gold Coast Titans, where he remains the most successful coach that club had ever had, having achieved a success rate of 46.08%, he took on assistant’s roles at a variety of other NRL clubs before coming to Hull.
And the man who has to be given credit for recruiting Cartwright and the playing recruits is Richie Myler, who was appointed as the club’s director of rugby in 2024, with many pundits and supporters expressing strong doubts about his qualifications for the role, which saw him end his playing career and move straight into such a senior and demanding role with a club that had been performing so badly.
I admit that I was one of those who wasn’t sure how he would handle the job, given his lack of prior experience.
But since then, he has been promoted to become the club’s chief executive while retaining the director of rugby role. And he has done a great job in turning the club’s fortunes around and restoring the morale of its supporters.
So far the key theme of the 2025 season has been one of revival, or perhaps even the rebirth, both of Hull FC and of Wakefield Trinity, while on the other side of the coin we have the near-death experience of Salford Red Devils.
I hope that someone can find a way to convert the Salford story into a Hull or Wakefield story.
