In fairness though, maybe 9th, winning roughly 10 games, would represent significant progress vs the clown car cataclysm of 2024. In one sense it’d be back to mucky kebab square one but you’ll be coming at it from the other direction, not dreaming of steak, just glad that it’s not workhouse gruel for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Given the first leg of the journey is going to be tough much of the time, I’d say your recruitment is going as well as Hull fans might reasonably have hoped so far. If you get 18+ games from Abdull, he’ll make a huge difference.

If they were on 12 month contracts I'd see the sense but 2 and 3 years? What sort of state will abdul be in 3 years hence? How many time will hardaker have been arrested by 2026?

It's all got a bit of a feel of the rebuild Daryl Powell attempted at Wire about it

I think the players rumoured to have signed improve the squad, we shall see what happens. I cant imagine we have people going round the block to sign for us, its a stepping stone for us to get better. We shall see, hopefully Cartwright can get deliver what he says and gets the place to winning more then losing or at least being in a game for much longer.

Players aren't going to sign on one year deals if they have other offers, all are better than what we have. I'd be happy with 6th to 8th next season, probably more like 8th, but at least challenging for 6th throughout the season.

I think people are underestimating how good Abdull is. There are obviously question marks over his fitness, both in terms of his size and his injuries (which probably go hand in hand to some extent). But playing ability wise he is streets ahead of what we've got now. He's a risk, but worst case scenario is you've got a talented player who misses a few too many games, but doesn't carry much of a cap hit. Best case is that Cartwright makes a breakthrough with his fitness and attitude and you get a player who can dominate games on a regular basis. Admittedly the former is more likely, but I'm ok with that risk.

with not a lot of thought or ambition

Dont think Cartwright has had any imput on any of those signings

Let’s be honest these signings represent no better quality then the type of signings we’ve made in the years between 2018-2023, it’s bargain basement shopping of what’s available on a low budget. The stupidly long length of the contracts we are handing out for these players that nobody else would indicates that we are still struggling to compete financially. I’ll exclude 2024 from that as this seasons recruitment has to stand alone as the worst in the history of the sport, it will be better than that but hardly a high bar.

To be fair, Pearson did say that any investment will help add a couple of quality players to a squad of workman like players but that won’t be sorted until the end of the year. Maybe it will be sorted in time to add a bit of quality come season ticket renewal time? I still think we’ll be restricted by quota places, but hopefully Cartwright seems as better placed as anyone in the game to come up with a couple of gems.

I really hope we can come up with something exciting at season ticket time as we need it. I don’t think you can underestimate the damage that going a full season winning only 2 points against a part time outfit amongst years of dreadful home form is going to do to this club. 5K home crowds in a 25K stadium is going to make for a terrible atmosphere next season. Serving up some decent rugby with exciting players is the only way to start building again.

The title of the end of the season review is sorted.

I take your point, but I doubt they’d have signed on 12 month deals. Abdull has/had a contract with Rovers through 2026. There’d maybe be competition for Hardaker if Hull only offered 1 year.

While you you may not feel inspired, imagine how worried you’d be relying even more heavily on the 2024 squad going into 2025. Got to start somewhere.

It’ll be interesting to see how many new quota recruits Myler can make space for.

Hardraker is better than any of centres.
Abdul is better than the 4 scrumhalfs who have played there this year.
Holmes is better than all of our backrowers
Asista is better than any of our forwards
Borough is a wildcard, but I'd say he looks a better option offthe bench than we have now. Can't offer much less than ant of our current hookers.

Add in Satae, Whitehead and 3 quota players, maybe a domestic winger too and we are streets ahead of this season Nd that's without the off field changes.

Also Martin, Charles, Staveley and a few others will be better with the game time they've had this season.