Quote: Chris28 "I thought it was interesting that yesterday Cas had 5 FC rejects playing for them. Deemed not good enough for the mighty FC, they're now part of a side that has improved massively this year (yes, it may not last) and they look down on our lowly 10th place from 3rd, having thrashed a team that beat us only a few weeks ago.
The point being of course that a side (regardless of so-called quality) that is together and wants to play can do so much better than a team of supposed stars who either can't or won't. On paper, you'd say we're better in the majority of positions, but in terms of form, confidence and will to win, they're streets ahead.
We need to start again, write off this season and build over the next few, like Cas have, like Leeds did, like Wigan did. I'm not suggesting that we chuck games, but why not blood some of the youngsters? Try different set ups, game plans? We seem to be playing completely different 17s and different game plans week in week out anyway, so why not actually say it and do it?
We as fans need to calm down with our expectations that we can win trophies and realise that we ain't going to be challenging for some time. We might fluke a CC final and maybe win it, but the aim should be long term success, not a quick fix just so we can say we won something. AP needs to read the riot act, get rid of some players, some coaches and effectively start again.
Some of our defence on Saturday was shocking and we're back in the old "go behind, heads down" way I thought we'd got rid of. Once we go behind the players seem to feel that its game over. It is so frustrating because we've seen a few times this year that we CAN play well.
Still, come Thursday, we'll have a player trotting out the "we can beat Leeds and kick on from that" flannel and then have our backsides comprehensively handed to us at Headingley on Friday night.
Perhaps for different reasons, but I'm with Dobbo. Enough is enough. I love Hull FC, which is why seeing us like this hurts.'"
Absolutely right. I had an 'eyes raised to heaven' moment too at Cas' FC rejects showing us how a well-coached TEAM is so much stronger than a group of 'star' players. Take Salford - with Rangi - as the opposite example.
There's not too much wrong with our team on paper, excepting the inexperience of our half-back pairing. It's an attitude issue for certain. It's interesting that we start a season strongly then always tail off to mediocrity with the odd great performance chucked in. That's not a quality issue, it's a quantity of will problem. We know this team can 'do' it, we've seen them earlier on. So why aren't they doing it now?
So diffucult to fix, and long term not short. But can Pearson last long term?