But not every year can be a top recruitment year, there are so many factors including who is available, an unexpected injury to a top player, someone who retires or wants to leave to go elsewhere (like Ryan Hall) and if you're focusing on the core of the club, the youngsters then continually recruiting from outside the club never works out in the long run.

You can't always produce one top youngster a year to shine, never mind the outlier that Leeds had with producing several within a very short period of time, even despite winning the championship last year and one could say they overperformed to expectations they were still in a transition phase.
Still not seeing how this helps them in the short term, why not plan a replacement and then do what's required at season end

wow, you didn't mention Radford!

Wouldn’t have thought he’d get a gig in Australia least with Cronulla

I'm having a little chuckle at the Bumpsters empathy for Brian Mc's.
If we were currently nosediving towards the bottom four he'd be having a cardiac over Radfords incompetence.

Bumpy takes some flack on here, some deservedly so. However, this is thread derailment and does not help at all.



FWIW - I think McDermott rode his luck in the early years but his credentials were very much enhanced by winning the GF last year, the year after being bottom 4.


Would be interested to know how much Hetherington was "persuaded" to pull the trigger by the owners.

What's derailing about it?
It's true.

It was a comment about another their poster rather than McDermott.

These forums are of a low standard since it became tit for tat sqabbling.

OT, BmD had a decent run. Not many will be in charge for 8 years. With him and Wane going, does this mean Radford will be the longest serving incumbent?

Wonder what the average tenure of a coach is in the SL era compared to BITD.
Hull's greatest ever coach, Roy Francis was with us best part of 9 years before departing for Leeds (and winning more silverware there), Bunting was here for 7 years, in the last 30 years I think Radford has being the incumbent for longest coming up to 5 seasons at the end of this campaign and unless something goes very badly wrong results wise (a lot worse than losing 7 on the trot) I can see him being in charge for the next 4 years even if we don't win anything.

I think it would take something catastrophic to happen for Radford’s tenure to be ended but and it’s a big but, if this season fizzles out as it may well do and next season goes a similar way, he may well find himself persona non grata. I don’t think AP is as soft on him as you imply.

Pearson would first look to the players, but I don't think anyone is to "blame", we are having a bad season for injuries, but still in it.

IF (and as you say, a huge IF) Radford was to go, who would come in?

I reckon Lee is here long term, and I hope he is. I would like to hear from Ellis more, but then Motu didn't say much & contributed a lot quietly behind the scenes.

I stil think we're doing OK

Denis Betts?

Well he does have experience (in the middle 8’s and the championship)

Well that's precisely what I said, I think losing 7 on the trot would obviously mean questions need be asked but where we finish at the end of the season, how off field matters are going, how players and coach plus background team are interacting, who is coming in and so on will have as much influence if not more than the on field results though they are very much symbiotic.
Despite the two recent CC wins (realistic) expectations of our fans and indeed owner are not quite the same of that of Wigan and Leeds IMHO, so for instance if we had been in Leeds situation of having won a treble in 2015, come back to win the GF in '17 after a shocking 2016 and then be where Leeds are now which is still in the 8 and in the CC semifinal I don't think Radford would be getting the chop, not even close.

As above, who would we get, as an aspirational club we don't want a young inexperienced coach again, it's massively risky, Radford was for me one loss against Rovers away (in 2016) from it all going wrong, lose that and I think we don't win anywhere near as many games nor win the CC. Radford would have still got a go at 2017 even IF that had have happened.
So long as we are sniffing around the top 4/finishing around 5-6th Radford is safe for the foreseeable future, no matter what happens from now on he'll still be our coach come end of 2019 unless we get relegated, and by definition that is the extreme thing that could (not definitely) get him sacked, I think AP would give him more leeway than most and not just based on past performances.

With regard to Roy Francis are you considering the years he was captain/coach after previous coach Joe Oliver left in 1950? This would extend his coaching time at Hull to 13 years (1950-1963) becoming full time coach in the mid 50's.

My dad became friends with Roy through work in the 50's and I met him a few times. Dad and I went to Hull matches during the fifties including the 2 consecutive losing Challenge Cup finals against Wigan and Wakefield.

In 1968 when I was living in South Africa my dad wrote from Hull telling me Leeds, coached by Roy, had reached the CC final and had bought a ticket to attend. A week or so before the final I received a telegram saying my dad had died suddenly and returned to Hull for the funeral. After I took dad's ticket and went to the match to see Roy finally win a CC final with Leeds beating Wakefield.

By 1969 I had moved to Australia and met up with Roy again when he came to Sydney to coach North Sydney.

I fully support your view of Francis as a Hull coach. In fact in the time I have been watching rugby league(over 70 years) I would place him in the highest echelon of all rugby league coaches.

FM, yes, my mistake, I had only counted the purely coaching role from 1954, I knew he had been player-coach but totally forgot about that. The fact he got a team to perform as he did that wasn't full of superstars like the Wigan team and indeed sides like Oldham & Featherstone were superb from all accounts proved what a great coach he was even if it wasn't acknowledged (which it was)
It must have been so exciting to watch RL back then especially the big crowds at club matches on a regular basis, touring teams being national news, post war RL certainly was the heydays.