It's all a massive step up from last season for sure, but a long way to go. I think we badly need another half, with Tommy finishing; I like Cust, and I hope we hang on to him, but we need more than him and Smith.

I predicted we could finish anywhere form 2nd to 6th which I’ve revised to 3rd or 6th but generally I’m far happier than the last 3 seasons.

I’m not overly concerned with the potential losses of Isa and Marshall as one never gets a pass and the other has failed to impress in any area all season.

Hull scored for me 2 really decent tries but the defence otherwise tonight was generally good. Without Field we are impotent. We are slow and deliberate. As you say we can look pretty good but for unsustained periods. I thought that for the first 15 minutes we were by far the superior team. Lots of room for improvement but there are several players where you can actually see that improvement being delivered.

Very pleased tonight with Byrne Havard and Partington. Smithies making solid progress and if Isa isn’t fit for a week or two it’s his chance to claim a regular stating place.

We are very much work in progress but you can actually see the potential if we make some decent new acquisitions in 2023. As a minimum we need 2 centres, a top prop and potentially a quality HB.

If Saints turn up in a couple of weeks they will murder us but if it’s a warm dry day on a dry pitch I can see us scoring a try or two. As you say we need lift our momentum by a few notches and sustain it for far longer periods if we are to achieve any success.

I’d give us a 6.5 to a 7 out of 10 so far this season. Last year that would have been a 2 or a 3 on most occasions.

He did nothing in his first stint absolutely nothing. 8 minutes for a full time pro is pretty disappointing. I’m being very diplomatic there.
Why in a certain way? If I’m a coach I want my best players on the pitch for the maximum minutes. I wanted Mago to beat and nullify Satu. He did neither.

What I would say is that Mago is very quick at the ptb. In that respect yes I agree he does help in improving our momentum.

I’m old school John. If as a prop you are not fit enough to play 40 to 60:minutes then you should not be in the squad. If I’m being totally honest if any player isn’t fit enough to complete 80 then he shouldn’t be considered for the squad. I’m probably in a minority of one but I’m content with my thoughts.

I clearly see things differently than a lot on here but so be it. There's been a big debate on here recently about what happens when teams lose 5, 6, 7 players. Well, by the time Marshall failed to make it past half time we were 5 down with a sixth playing his first minutes after a near year long absence. We still won.

It's ludicrous that people are saying we're miles off less than two weeks after Saints, the supposed benchmark, lost at the bottom club with a similar number missing. Are they 'miles off' too then?

Make no mistake, we fought for that tonight. Showed plenty grit and determination to win a game we weren't bossing. Hull are a decent side. That's a game we lose last year. Not only lose, but lose convincingly.

As for individual performances, Havard, Smithies, Field and Farrell were excellent. Byrne, Singleton and Mago (yes Mago) were good. Harry Smith has played just 2 games this season and won both of them for us. What do you people want?

I absolutely despair sometimes. That was a hard fought win that should be celebrated not belittled. We won't have it all our own way every game and the ability to win close games like that is crucial. Were we perfect? Absolutely not. Were we good enough to win? I don't know...I'll need to check the scoreboard again as apparently we weren't very good.

Mago isn’t a metre eating prop, the type of games like last nights aren’t his specialty. Hull were terrific in D (as were we) getting right up in our faces, numbers in tackles. Mago is much a prop introduced 20/30mins into a game that looks for the lazy and tired defenders so he can look for that offload. He won’t make many, if any barn storming runs nor get metres each time. That’s why he’s a bench starter and Singo/Ellis would be our go to starting props.

Not all props are utilised to make ground, Mago is in that category. But before some of you get your pitch forks out, yes 8mins isn’t great but there could be a wide range of reasons for that short stint. Minor injury, coach feels we need fire power in the pack at that point in time rather than an off loader all sorts. I’m comfortable with him and his performances.

On the game itself; it was undoubtedly a tough gritty win that could have gone either way. I didn’t think either teams had a great offensive night but in D each were terrific. As I said earlier, it’s a huge confidence booster IMO against a well drilled Hull team.

Agree with all this, I was personally delighted with the win last night, due to all of the factors you mention above.

To have a game changing call (Connor kick out) go against us, losing 2 of our starting players and interchange as a result for 40 minutes, plus the fact that Hull played really well (they will do well this year after seeing them), yet we came away with the win. Some guts and desire on show.

As Peet alluded to post-match, we weren’t great in attack and Field created a try out of nothing when we were looking lost but to go on and win the game was hugely impressive.

A special mention to Harvard, Smithies and Singleton; great efforts standing up to one of the best packs in the league. My MOM was Liam Farrell who took that game by the scruff of the neck in the last 15-20, the man is a machine.

Statistically Mago was excellent with 11 carries for 91 metres. I’ve been happy with him overall and I think there’s more to come.

I’m going to watch the game back when I can. I’ve been on total rl and other places and the game has had loads of praise and even neutrals were saying how well we played. I’m feeling like I was a right miserable git on the night because I didn’t feel like that. I was absolutely freezing mind so maybe it was that getting to me

Just from a personal point of view I still think I’m in a place of doubting us given how bad we were last season. There’s undoubtedly some bad habits still in there that need to eradicated but a whole heap of stuff is vastly improved. I think I’m guilty of focussing on the negatives a bit too much from last night, rather than looking at what went well. The fact we start without Leuluai and Pearce Paul doesn’t help, we then have Isa playing on when clearly injured and then going off and need to shuffle around and we then need to shuffle things again when Marshall goes off. It is easy in the heat of a game to overlook things like that and to also overlook the fact that we’re probably facing one of the form teams in the comp as well.

I still stick by the fact we’re going to need to be so much better on Good Friday but then when wouldn’t that be the case? You always need to rise in those games. There’s a doubt we’ve got it in us because we didn’t show it last season and we didn’t show it at Catalans but we’ll see.

I’m more than happy with the win and happy with our general improvement. The entire 17 are playing much better and individually several players have come on leeps and bounds.

I will look out for Mago’s first drive but 9 drives in an entire match???
I want the guy to be a huge success. He almost certainly has the ability. One of thre finest sights on a rugby is a big prop offloading and he can do it for fun.
As I’ve said previously if he is carrying an injury fair do’s but if he isn’t then for me he’s not doing enough by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s not bad 9 carries in limited minutes. Big Tony would regularly play longer minutes than Mago is and run 3 or 4 times only. The minutes were limited but he was busy enough when he was on I felt. If you look at Havard he carried 18 times and that’s fantastic but he was probably on the field 3 times as long, so the output per minute isn’t much different.

Sometimes I think we need to look at the props as a collective unit. We don’t have that one that makes 150+ metres most weeks but if your 4 or 5 are playing different roles and coming up with the metres you need between them, then that’s absolutely fine.

Same ones bagging Mago's minutes are probably the same ones that used to love Clubby.

2021 that’s a game we’d have lost. On that I am almost certain, even if we had the squad we have now.

We’re not there yet, we’re still a way off IMO and that’s not a criticism. But we’re well on the way to getting there, wins like last night prove it. I’ve watched the game again this morning (the benefits of having a 1yr old non sleeper). I’m going to roll back on my Smith/Partington criticism, they weren’t poor but fairly solid on second viewing. Yes there was nothing spectacular but they did their job and did it to a good standard.

Whether it’s good enough is another matter, I’m not convinced at all with Partington but gladly will roll back further I hope in time.

Our defence was dogged and our attack was actually pretty good and suited the game. I thought Singleton was brilliant last night and I hope some of those who went after him with pitchforks will eat their words, he’s been a shining star in our pack this season and in all games he’s played has laid the platform with hard drives, tough D and a willingness to do the tough stuff which generally speaking isn’t praised anywhere near enough.

A good win, good performance. I’m happy with last night.

Singleton has been up and down IMO but last night was a real up, as was that Huddersfield game. We need that week to week from him. Once Ellis is back and with Havard now back and playing really well, I think we’ve got the makings of a strong and well balanced prop rotation.