The truth hurts good luck against Featherstone

Today was a decent contest.
Hull dealt with the high ball better than Trinity and then there was that drop goal, wow.
Both sides gave everything and ultimately the game came down to a piece of Sneyd magic.

Disappointed to lose but, we will be back to winning ways in the next couple of games.

Talk of a top 4 spot does seem a bit premature and now looks a little optimistic.
If we keep winning our games against mid table and bottom 4 sides we will be ok and if we can put a run together later in the season who knows ?

It made a pleasant change to come away after losing and not think we'd been stiffed by the ref.

Onward and upwards

Go back to the start of the year and go through the fixture list. Identify those games we should win and those we could win but would be hard. Wigan, Warrington and Hull away would be in the second category. Of those, at Warrington we were the better side, according to some pundits, and today we lost to a 50 yard drop-goal. I hardly think that is any cause for panic.

A 50% win ratio would ordinarily get you in the top eight. Our two toughest home fixtures come in the next two weeks. After that, we get a run of winnable ones. You could lose ten games and still be in with a shout of the top 4. We've lost 4 very losable games.

That is how the season works. It ebbs and flows. We've been nearly winners in ones we've lost. We've been nearly losers in some of the ones we've won. I'll worry in July. For now, losing narrowly away from home to genuine top 4 sides is something I can deal with.

Havent seen any of the tries from the game , but looking to see if Talanoa was onside from Sneyds kick. He looked it from where we were sat.

Good. Batchelor made 2 handling errors but tbf 1 of them was a complete hospital pass from Kyle Wood. But apart from that he ran strong and won collision a few times and was excellent with the boot. Good performance.

Hampshire - kicking could have been better but caused more problems with ball in hand and running than Finn would - few jinking runs that made the Hull line hesitant but we sometimes lacked support runners off the back of it. I'd give him a run at 7 personally because his pace means we shift the ball quicker imo.

Jowitt - Mixed. Should have dropped on a loose ball for the first Hull try and dropped another high ball that put pressure on us to lead to another of the Hull scores. But he was excellent chiming into the line (nice cut out pass for Tupou's 2nd) and in his one on one defence (particularly when Talanoa broke down the wing). Pretty good. Again, quicker than grix - we looked dangerous when we shifted the ball quickly from one side to another and regularly stretched Hull down our left side with Arundel.

Baldwinson - Stood up okay. I didn't really see him much but maybe just can't remember. Didn't seem to play as many minutes as other forwards? Don't know. Just don't remember seeing all that much of him so can't comment too much on how he did.

Pauli Pauli had his best game yet. Made some good metres and went on one great run near the end to give us a chance of a drop goal. Hirst was excellent I though. Leg drive and metres after contact seemed really good. Randell was solid and great invention for MCB try. Arundel ran hard - I'm a big fan. MCB defensively is dodgy for me - shot wildly out of line for Talanoa's try off the kick leaving him in acres for an easy catch and score. Another instance where he left it way too long to react to a grubber and luckily the ball bounced back to us. Well taken second try though. Tupou was Tupou - thought he had another good game. Miller was pretty good, passed the ball well and troubled them with some jinking runs - kicking game lacking again.

Overall it was a good performance and I was happy with it and enjoyed the game. It was extremely small margins as seems to be the case at the minute but they will come good. I came away gutted but feeling positive about what we can do as the season progresses.

Just watched the highlights back... what on earth was Jowitt doing with the first try?

Brilliant ball for our try so credit where credit is due...