I work with someone who was friends with Leeds Rhinos coaching staff when they were in their pomp. They definitely built training schedules to peak for cup weeks in the regular season with an objective to be firmly in the mix at season end - LLS being an irrelevance - then everything building to September and October preparation including wet weather aspects etc. It is physically and mentally almost impossible to put in maximum effort every week from February to October so choices and priorities were made. I'm not saying this is what we are consciously doing as we're not of that standard or GF experience, but as an approach, and given our added affinity to the cup, it sort of makes sense, especially after our 2016 experience. The magnitude of the hammerings is alarming but IIRC Leeds got 40-50 points put past them by Wigan and Saints they year they won it from 5th and got to the CC final - something like that. As said we're not in that bracket at all but it shows that it's possible, and for a squad like ours with some ageing players and dire injuries for the first dozen rounds, it would be an approach that gives us the best chance.

I agree with some of the points,regarding ageing players recuperation times between games..
When we came to the playoff games, we looked physically shot, maybe due to excessive defensive stints during the season,caused by poor ball control,and a lack of discipline..

I think the players are been a bit disrespectful to Radford and the fans everyone has off days but Hull seem to go from one extreme to another and when you’ve trained well all week then as a coach have to watch a performance like the Huddersfield one only 5 days later to put 50 on the cup holders it would leave me peed off as it seems there playing when they want to

Well if thats the case we all may as well stop buying season passes and tickets and just go to the cup games eh.

I really cant see it at all, i think the huddersfield games and the other drubbings its been a mixture of player attitudes when th8ngs arnt really coming off and the errors are stacking up alot of our platers mentalitys are to take the afternoon off. We saw the same thing with Catalans last night, it was even stevens at half time, they came out all guns blazing but a couple of tries for us and they gave up the arm wrestle.

Its the mentality that seperates the good teams from the champion teams, whats that old saints mantra again, never write of the saints or someth8ng?

We need to adopt it, not make excuses up

In 2016 and 17 we strutted our stuff in most games, giving other top teams easy info on how to snuff us out. We did ok in the cups but came up short in the semi-finals both times. Cas to some extent had the same problem. Keeping our form erratic means other teams struggle to pick us. It's a long season and we can drop games. What will be truly galling is if we miss out on the top 5 by points difference

What you need to look at is how disciplined and professional the second half performance was.
Cut out the indiscipline and errors,make full use of your possession and you can see the results.
Most of the play this season has been ridden with errors and indiscipline and results has suffered.
One thing is certain we cannot play in the wet.

4 penalties first half all by Westerman and they scored both their tries from them

….although, tbf, only saints have conceded fewer penalties than us this season.