Mon 2 AugL SL: Hull FC v St Helens KO 7.45pm (TV)

[Just Browny]

Percival should be sitting down for that, wtf.

[Phil]

Saints definitely getting the rub of the green here 

[Just Browny]

Oh FFS. We've just seen Percival whack someone in the head and Child gives him a polite nod. One the other way and it's a yellow.

[MZH]

6 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Well, that’s it. After 20 minutes it looked for all the world that Hull would be taking a spanking but fair play to them for sticking in there and making a game of it. 

The yellow card did for us in the end but we can take positives from how we shook off the bad start and played our way back into it.

[Man of Kent]

Makinson seemed utterly shocked by that pass, which says a lot about how good Naiqama is as a centre. 

[Just Browny]

Think this McNamara lad needs to do a bit more work on his distribution.

[Futtocks]

Hull FC 10:42 St Helens at the hooter.

But some signs of a spark in the home side for parts of the game.

[Dunbar]

I haven't seen any of the previous posts in this thread so I don't know if it was ruined by the ref or if it was a dour game but....

I loved it, felt like a bit of a throwback for me, full of blood and thunder, bigs hits and good tries with skill. 

Very good game.

[FearTheVee]

1 minute ago, Dunbar said:

I haven't seen any of the previous posts in this thread so I don't know if it was ruined by the ref or if it was a dour game but....

I loved it, felt like a bit of a throwback for me, full of blood and thunder, bigs hits and good tries with skill. 

Very good game.

Agreed - great game to watch. Brutal at times.

[Pigeon Lofter]

14 minutes ago, Just Browny said:

Oh FFS. We've just seen Percival whack someone in the head and Child gives him a polite nod. One the other way and it's a yellow.

Yep, the game was done after that, a one second late collision should never lead to a sin binning, happens every few plays because it's part of the game and without obvious malice. I switched off at that point, over zealous refereeing costing the game fans. 

[M j M]

Just now, Pigeon Lofter said:

I switched off at that point, over zealous refereeing costing the game fans. 

Perhaps it would be better if the players stopped committing foul play?

[Phil]

4 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

I haven't seen any of the previous posts in this thread so I don't know if it was ruined by the ref or if it was a dour game but....

I loved it, felt like a bit of a throwback for me, full of blood and thunder, bigs hits and good tries with skill. 

Very good game.

I don’t think referees win or lose games but I thought James Child was a bit inconsistent tonight 

[Man of Kent]

So hungry, Welsby, and he clearly loves his rugby and being out there on the paddock 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

Well, that was frustrating.

Our discipline at times is absolutely shocking. I don't think it's as bad as the ref made it out tonight, and it's nice to see others agreeing Saints got the rub a lot, but we definitely need to sort it out. Sao must have given away at least 5 penalties for high shots.

The amount of players we're still missing though is showing in our quality of play at the mo. The youngsters we have coming through are no where near the quality of other clubs and it shows. That's the biggest concern for me.

[Chris22]

Impressive tonight. Thought Hull had good intensity given they played on Thursday.

What I like about us is our lack of panic. When we had a disallowed try at the end of the first half and Hull scored at the other, no frustration. When Hull upped it in the second half, no panic.

Jack Welsby is such an exciting prospect. Roby still brilliant.

[redjonn]

Hull Fc tonight had what one may call lack of finesse.  It was easy to defend (ignoring the kicks). Yep big lads trundling forward can cause a bit of mayhem sometimes but any decent side will be able to continue to tackle and eventually they run out of idea's to break the defence.  Its not as if a SL team isn't able to tough it out which Saints did commendably until the energy of Hull dissipated.., it then became just stopping Hull making many yards and starting from a good position to get into Hull last 20.

OK they tried hard but wouldn't you expect that from any team.  I had them making the play off's and a dark horse to get far but will have to reconsider.

[MZH]

3 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

Well, that was frustrating.

Our discipline at times is absolutely shocking. I don't think it's as bad as the ref made it out tonight, and it's nice to see others agreeing Saints got the rub a lot, but we definitely need to sort it out. Sao must have given away at least 5 penalties for high shots.

The amount of players we're still missing though is showing in our quality of play at the mo. The youngsters we have coming through are no where near the quality of other clubs and it shows. That's the biggest concern for me.

Who was the last really good youngster we produced and successfully integrated into the first team? In any position? Not even international quality, just top SL standard.

I think you are going back to likes of Lineham, and before that even further back to Houghton and Tom Briscoe. Our record for producing youngsters is terrible. For our last really good batch you have to go back nearly 20 years when Horne, Cooke, King, Yeaman etc were all playing together at the height of their powers. We produce plenty of players, but 99% of them are totally forgettable. They play a season or 2 and then end up in the championship or leave the sport all together.

That said I do think Jack Brown has something. Another couple of years and he could develop into a very good prop. The rest of them look totally average yet again.

[MZH]

5 minutes ago, redjonn said:

Hull Fc tonight had what one may call lack of finesse.  It was easy to defend (ignoring the kicks). Yep big lads trundling forward can cause a bit of mayhem sometimes but any decent side will be able to continue to tackle and eventually they run out of idea's to break the defence.  Its not as if a SL team isn't able to tough it out which Saints did commendably until the energy of Hull dissipated.., it then became just stopping Hull making many yards and starting from a good position to get into Hull last 20.

OK they tried hard but wouldn't you expect that from any team.  I had them making the play off's and a dark horse to get far but will have to reconsider.

As I alluded to early in the thread, we have seen in recent weeks by him not playing just how much ability Jake Connor has with ball in hand. He has so little around him in the way of attacking flair, and yet he manages to put tries on a plate for people time after time. Without him we look clueless in attack. 

If he had played tonight you might have seen a different story, and I definitely think he would have picked Leeds apart last week given how we dominated the first half.

[Old Frightful]

The previous two posts sum Hull FC up for me.

With a full strength team playing we're good enough to challenge if not beat most teams in the league.

With only a few missing, we're not good enough to beat any team in the league.

Struggling to see what people see in Ben McNamara.

Perhaps it's his surname.

[Wollo Wollo Wayoo]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

I don’t think referees win or lose games but I thought James Child was a bit inconsistent tonight 

Child never changes.  When is he due to retire?

[Wellsy4HullFC]

35 minutes ago, MZH said:

Who was the last really good youngster we produced and successfully integrated into the first team? In any position? Not even international quality, just top SL standard.

I think you are going back to likes of Lineham, and before that even further back to Houghton and Tom Briscoe. Our record for producing youngsters is terrible. For our last really good batch you have to go back nearly 20 years when Horne, Cooke, King, Yeaman etc were all playing together at the height of their powers. We produce plenty of players, but 99% of them are totally forgettable. They play a season or 2 and then end up in the championship or leave the sport all together.

That said I do think Jack Brown has something. Another couple of years and he could develop into a very good prop. The rest of them look totally average yet again.

It's the same conversation we had on the way home.

Jamie Shaul is the last player I can think of you break into the 13 as a regular, and he's all but been replaced by Connor now as the "running full back" is no longer a tactical choice. He broke through in 2013.

Tom Lineman broke through at a similar time, but he was a York product, not Hull.

Josh Bowden has been a mainstay for nearly a decade, but never really pushed on past good rotation prop.

Tom Briscoe did come through our academy, but not through the Hull amateur scene (Fev Lions). That was 2008.

Danny Houghton has been a mainstay for over a decade and won a Man of Steel to his credit, but still never got an international selection despite this. 2007.

The last Hull born and bred product to come through locally was Kirk Yeaman. That says it all.

Compare our production line to that of Wigan, Saints, Warrington, Leeds, Cas, even Catalans and Huddersfield. This is why we aren't competing. We have rarely successfully produced high quality youngsters that not only take a first team spot, but then kick on for international honours.

[Wollo Wollo Wayoo]

1 hour ago, MZH said:

Who was the last really good youngster we produced and successfully integrated into the first team? In any position? Not even international quality, just top SL standard.

Reece Lynn ? 

[BroncoFan]

I want to see Hull now giving an opportunity to Jude Fereirra or Davy Litten, looking to the future because Mahe Fonua just isn’t performing, he looks too slow and makes too many errors.

[meast]

Radford out?

[Old Frightful]

5 hours ago, BroncoFan said:

I want to see Hull now giving an opportunity to Jude Fereirra or Davy Litten, looking to the future because Mahe Fonua just isn’t performing, he looks too slow and makes too many errors.

I'm sure certain players have a reputation with aspects of their game with most referees and I think Fonua is one of them.

Granted, he does probably lose the ball more than most, but I thought the incident in the second half when he lost the ball early in the tackle count 30m from Saints' line was a good example. Not sure who the Saints defender was, Percival maybe, but it looked like he'd punched the ball out of Fonua's grasp as he tackled him. The ball came out far quicker than if Fonua had dropped it but he was never going to get the decision.