"We have far too few players with genuine rugby brains, a poor kicking game, and as soon as we come under any pressure revert straight back to one out rugby.
2, We have no flexibility in our approach to games. If things are not going our way we still don't/can't change anything and the game continues to drift away from us."

Funny McRae was saying that if your Plan A is not working you need to have a Plan B, C & D and I think most fans will agree we have a Plan A, A & A

Maybe the first step was to get a strong pack and stop getting beat every week. Maybe RA thought we needed to become hard to beat, which we have in the main, and use it as a base.

With a more settled squad for next season apart form the odd addition maybe he can now develop the philosphy further and become a better footballing side rather than just hard to beat. Perhaps that is why he is targetting players with ball skills and kicking skills.

I disagree, for me the crux of the problems have been the h/backs or lack of them.

I agree, however my biggest concern is our h/backs fitness etc.

Have we become hard to beat though? Maybe at home to a point but away from home we have been as poor as the previous season. The amount of close defeats we suffered last season compared to the amount of close wins we have had this season tells me very little has changed except we are sneaking those tight close games more.

Think everyone can see that and with the two we have I don't see them playing much more than they have this year (although Long has been unlucky)

If we do not recruit a halfback for next season we won't do well.

Agree....mind you s0ds law we will recruit and Longy & Horney will both have injury free cracking seasons

Maybe I read too much into it then, fair enough.

I'd say we're harder to break down this year, but once you've figured out how (getting the ball wide quickly) you can score points for fun and we won't change anything to stop you.

No worries, think we are all a bit touchy right now.

Correct. Which is why we now need to move on and going from being a hard to beat team. We have to become a more dangerous and expansive team whilst still retaining that toughness/hard to beat attitude.

Do you mean 'Multitasking'?

I think everyone is hurting now paul thats all mate!!

However on the subject lets look at it in reality...
prior to this season we had a squad that was seriously lacking in any sort of grunt so the club fixed that by bringing in the likes of hame, Moa, Fitz and Omeley which added to Cussack and Radford etc geve us a very strong pack indeed, as good as anyone else to be fair....
however in spending the cash available on those players it meant SL was in reality the only other star quality player we were going to get and in fairness given the other players we had he seemes at the time like a cracking buy and just what we needed to push the big units around the park ... then the injury jinx hit us all over again with him and Horne which in reality is 80% of the "smart plays" sat in the dressing room injured isnt it??
and in reality left us with a huge juggernaut of a pack that was left with no thought process to guide them hence it became route one rugby much of the time and so our pack tried to do too much and tired quickly and hence we lost some we really should have won and looked jaded at times with Fitz, houghton and Omeley doing more hours than they should have !!
Non of the above is anyones fault but merely the result of circumstance due to a lot of injurioes to key players and nothing more... then we got long and horne back too late and with no match practice and it showed , and the plan went totally out of the window with the so called injury to hall and from that moment the writing was on the wall!!

We will next year have both SL and RH fit and recovered properly from all knocks again so both will seem like new players next term as they have not featured much this term have they so thats a good thing, we have new smart blood in on the wing to compliment Young Tom which will make a kick chase a more viable option again, Berrigan in the centres and of course the return of RW whom makes us always look a better team when playing..
there will be new faces before next year and one or two old faces will depart so there is a shake up of sorts but before the knee jerks and hangings begin think about the fact we can only spend money we have on players available... if we aint got the money we cant entice the players and even when we have got the dough does that mean they are all going to want to jump ship and come to Hull??? no it does not..

What i would say is wait and see what the board and RA do next for new blood as they have not done so badly thus far with bringing big names to FC so give them a chance and remember we are only 1 year into the clubs 5 year plan to put it back where it should be!!!

Wether you like RA or not the fact is to have reached the playoffs is infinately better than last year and the year before, new faces and skills can only push onwards and upwards.. and lets be fair we could have done much worse again !!
lets see who comes in before next year and who goes!!

A good post.

It's like I said earlier we got a big pack together and basically said we are going to be tougher and harder to beat. The loss of our halves meant we lacked any real creativity and without cover next season could be the same if either SL or RH get injured again.

RA has helped us become competitive again and we now have a pack that will compete with the best. What we need are better/more ball handlers to exploit the space created by our pack and to feed the ball to our exciting backs like Tansey, Sharp, Lyne and Briscoe. I think a halfback, possibly a hooker and a prop would do us about right.