21-man squad v Hull FC

[Charriots Offiah]

I’m just not surprised at the result.

Me neither fozzie. Sadly I even expected it once I knew the weather forecast

Our best front row partnership of Bullock and Singleton split up - for what? What coach worth their salt changes a line-up that's working? Has them playing split shifts opposite to one another to negate their starting impact!!!

Then compounds it giving the captaincy to someone with only 12 months playing time left at the club is more crass stupidity. Should be looking long term, not a "quick fix" then face the same problem a year later

Recruitment? What recruitment. Club let plenty go and Signed a player who will probably miss the entire season! This did NOT leave the team in a stronger/better position. Honestly can see this side going out at the play-offs because the forwards make no yards and our spine relies too much on the teams fitness/individual brilliance rather than quality of team play

I said when we won the game last week, we would lose this one!

One of the big errors by the club IMO was letting Flower go & re-signing Clubb

We have known that the likes of Lockers, Clubb and Flower needed replacing for some time but our planning has not been great. Rads needs to step up to the plate and sort our recruitment out.

[DaveO]

Still, I'm sure it's not just me who thinks, if Waney is in that dressing-room at half-time, we win that tie.

Maybe so but it stood out like a sore thumb nothing changed after half time until 15 minutes before the end. Why wait to make some tactical changes when the current tactics weren’t working?

[morley pie eater]

Here we go again! 6 wins on the bounce, then the first defeat and it's "Doomed, we're all doomed".

First, credit to Hull. They'll be challenging for more than the cup if they continue the improvement under Hodgson.

Secondly, mistakes pretty much cost us the game. Liam Byrne is a young lad with huge potential, but (with hindsight) not sure that starting him was a great idea. Hardaker needs better advice about what he says to the press - a week or two off may be a good idea - but he's been superb before last week.

Third, we've progressed under Lam. One mistake-ridden loss doesn't make him a bad coach.

I'd hate to be in the trenches with people who panicked at the first setback.

Bang on. But on the other hand if we won all the time the website would go bust for lack of advertising revenue!

Haha!

[Barney841]

Hull came with more aggression in defence and knew they could boss our forwards m, as we are known to have either not good enough or small props.
And when you’ve got a kicker like Sneyd, he puts in the corners and we get smothered.
Our kicking game has lacked for a good few years now. And today the last tackle option was awful, lost count how many bad end of sets we had

[pearsy]

Poor kicking game again fowards not making ground .Most teams have several players who kick goals and then there is Zak .I suppose we have been spoit over the years with Botica Farrel and Richards.Nice to see Dom looking quick

[Southern Softy]

Hull came with more aggression in defence and knew they could boss our forwards m, as we are known to have either not good enough or small props.
And when you’ve got a kicker like Sneyd, he puts in the corners and we get smothered.
Our kicking game has lacked for a good few years now. And today the last tackle option was awful, lost count how many bad end of sets we had

Not just today, we haven't had a last-tackle option since George Williams left. The only time in the match that we looked as if we had a plan was an early kick to Swift and Hastings was waiting for it and him and pushed him over the line. With most clubs, I'd assume that had been worked on but with us, I'm guessing it was two talented players working out something between them off the cuff.
Dom Manfredi was the only one who looked as if he could run from deep but he was never sure that a kick was coming on the last tackle to his wing so he couldn't anticipate and chase a try.

[The Yonner]

Disappointing thing for me was neither coach nor certain players seem able to learn from their mistakes. That performance was a carbon copy of last year against Leeds. Where was the game plan to counter the obvious threat from a bigger pack once again?

Smithies made a crucial contribution to the grand final defeat with his roughing the kicker penalty. In the next big game he does exactly the same thing! Either nobody spoke to him about it or he has nothing up top.

So what's the remedy? Well I certainly don't agree with bringing Shaun Wane back. Remember the boring style of play? It's not all about silverware for me. We must have an exciting attacking team - that is our tradition. And bringing John Monie back didn't end well did it?

The answer is a young Australian coach - they are still way ahead of our home grown guys.

[widdenoldboy]

Agree totally with not learning lessons posts, Smithies is a good example but where is the coaching on this?

Although great to see Dom back, he was really Clubb's replacement, further weakening our forwards, again coaching.

Poor end of sets continues, coaching?

[lucky 13]

Disapointing. We have missed Marshall, Gildart and Manfredi early in sets off kick returns. Very often at least your first two or three hit ups are from your backs. Marshall also offers that scoot from the play the ball, he often makes good yards, gets a quick play or earns a penalty. We constantly seem to be kicking from distance, and yet get rolled over halfway allowing opportunity for easier opposition kicking. It's not hard our forwards don't dent the line and our hooker don't scoot. We could get away with that if we maybe had one or the other.
What compounds it is lack of being able or willing to change things. Bullocks our one forward who can make yards or bust it, yet he's had next to no game time? We also have little option from acting half for easy yards. We don't build enough pressure because of these things. When we do we are as good if not better than anyone. Any half would struggle behind that forward display.
I do imagine when French goes back to one and we get our backs at full strength this will cover up our issues.
I can't help thinking though what if we had all the lot and it does not need a coaching guru to see or fix it.

[moto748]

Agree with all of that. What I will say, and I've said before, is that sometimes it seems like people talk about Wigan outside backs running the ball up as if we were the only side to do it. All teams do this, both in SL and the NRL. And I doubt that Wigan backs take more carries than the backs of other sides. But of course that doesn't mean that you don't meed props who can do both, the best sides have both.