Quote: Mild Rover "Hull have looked to maintain quality at the top end of the squad but injuries have exposed a lack of depth this year, with some of the players in their early 20s not having kicked on as much as was hoped.
Success makes your top players attractive to others, driving up their value. On the other hand a lack of success or little prospect of it can mean you pay more to attract and retain the players you want - which was part of the problem with our long-term planning.
From the outside, it looks like Motu Tony did a great job of selling Hull FC to a group of players who might normally have been out of reach. Our best years in SL were largely based on recruitment in late 2007 and early 2008, when our direction of travel was really positive. It’s a difficult trick to repeat though, especially in a market that is thinner than 10 or even 3 years ago. Same for all SL clubs, of course.
Hopes that more than a couple of the most recent club-trained Hull FC golden generation will become top SL players seem to be fading. Some people’s expectations 3 or 4 years ago were way too high, but if those players had turned out like Yeaman, R. Horne, King and Cooke, or even the Hall, Washbrook, Wheeldon, G.Horne and Lee generation, you’d be in a much better place. It’s so difficult to know whether potential at 18 will be fulfilled, it seems.
You rode your luck really well the last couple of seasons. This year it seems to have run out. I don’t think there was anything massively wrong with an ‘if it ain’t broke...’ plan in prospect. But now it does look a bit knackered, Pearson is right to change things up imo. What he does and whether it works will be fascinating to see.'"
Fair appraisal. For me all roads lead back to not maintaining our pack strength. Regardless of off field behaviour binning Watts without a replacement and replacing Ellis with Paea have downgraded the foundations of our recent success. This is just compounded by Bowden and Green taking up Las Vegas style residency in the treatment room. As you say Motu Tony's influence will be sorely missed in a market where available players of quality are in very short supply. To me it matters less - the last 2 years have been like some incredible dream, but for those who believe 2 great seasons should automatically entitle us to more silverware despite a pretty significant injury crisis, it's apparently time to give up. Not talking about this board particularly BTW, more social media generally.
