It was for the most parts an entertaining match and good to see all the young players get a good run out. The idea of these games is to give players a good blow out, and some competitive opposition. How teams are made up is down to the coaches (or size of the squad). If a coach decides to field almost all their first choice squad for nearly all the game it is down to them, and you go expecting what we saw today. The team that will have learnt very little from this is Cas who didn't start to introduce their younger players until the last 15mins. Once the sides were on a par Hull looked much better.

Quality everywhere? I thought you said Shaul, Talanoa & Fonua are no good?

Radders was defence coach for Gentle you clown.

What about the other side of the argument...

Radford's side the past two years are playing more games a year, therefore they could be more fatigued?
Radford's side in the past two years are playing in Super 8 games against better opposition in the new league structure.
How many injuries did Radford have to content with in 2015 vs Gentle?
What were the areas of expertise within their backroom staff at the time?

Basically, comparing Gentle vs Radford defensive stats is an utterly futile exercise as there are so many other variables playing a part - Radford himself was involved in both setups in different positions. A simple average points against stat isn't a reliable indicator at all, except when trying to create a stick to beat Radford with.


I would also dispute your point about certain players not improving. Is there still room for improvement? Yes. Have they improved? Also yes. Particularly Talanoa the past couple of seasons. Who else do you feel hasn't improved?

We did ship in more points down the right hand side, but every team do. That's because most teams attack down their left more often as it's usually faster to ship the ball that way with right handed players. We also had a winger playing in the hardest position to defend in at right centre.

Who said Radford would improve Griffin's defence?
Wasn't our points against average only 18.7 in 2016? Pretty impressive to say we were in the Super 8s and our cup run included all top 8 SL sides.

Good god, its only the first day of the year and super analyst Bumpy is already giving us the benefit of his many years of coaching at top level. We've just had the best season that many can remember and strengthened the squad with some astute signings and he's still not happy. We'll probably see another petition before the years out, and he wonders why nobody takes him seriously.