It's been happening for a couple of years so clearly it's a deliberate tactic that we don't take the dull but safe option and play the percentages. We don't drive the ball into the corner for the opposition to try to run the ball out from right on their own line, or try to force repeat sets. I know it's not very exciting but they used to call it wet weather rugby for a reason. We try to score on pretty much every set which is a tactic some teams adopt but I've really got to question whether it actually works for us.

How many matches have we watched this year where the team tries to overplay at the wrong time or tries too hard to make things happen on the last tackle and comes up with an error or a play that allows the opposition to recover the ball and get out of danger?

Teams that can grind their opponents down and then be clinical with attacks at the right time tend to do well in the playoffs but we don't seem to want to play the percentages. I don't see how we'll trouble any top team playing like we did last night.

I don't think it's players going rogue or not following instructions - they've played like this most of the year and Matt Peet seems perfectly happy with it, so this is obviously coached to some extent but I'm really not sure it's getting the best out of the team. I've seen Harry Smith play the dullest, most predictable, no frills but effective rugby in the past. It's not like it's something he can't do so clearly he's being instructed not to and I find it baffling. He's not gone backwards in terms of game management we just don't seem interested in it.

It was frustrating because I thought we were the better team and made such a meal of it. Rather than having a bit of patience and trying to wear Hull down it was throw the ball wide as soon as possible and score on every play. We had some good territory and yet Hull didn't suffer as a result and their forwards weren't made to work hard enough because we just let them off the hook.

It was just a dire game from start to finish and I don't know which god we angered for us to have to sit through golden point extra time after that turgid mess.

My concern is Peet won't move French from the halves because if he did it would be an admittance that he was wrong to put him there in the first place.

We are desperate for a quality 6, we had enough field position to win the Hull game comfortably. It is our Achilles heel.

I understand what you're saying but other poor performances were not uniquely with French at 6. The point I'm making is that in all previous weeks he's made strong progress and because we had one poor performance in atrocious conditions when nobody played particularly well, it's all because French is at 6. We've won the majority of games when he's played there.

It's interesting that there's been, quite rightly, some good things said about Jake Clifford on these boards over the weeks yet even though he was busy being largely ineffective and kicking out on the full etc on Friday, no one is suggesting Hull should move him as "it isn't working". I bet Clifford would love the win ratio French currently has.

I’d like to think that Peet is bigger than that.
Basically we are playing a “project” player at 6 in the hope that he will eventually click. It’s verging on the absurd and wasting a wonderful talent. You can’t learn how to be a HB in half a season.
As I’ve said not sure what Peet will do. I thought Hampshire was the real deal a few years ago but he seems to have regressed over the years and unless he has some sort of resurgence he appears to be very much a squad player who will only get a game at HB in an emergency. It’s a pity young Farrimond isn’t a couple of years older.

Spot on with Farrimond, he looks a star of the future.