I never said he did, but you need your players on the park, particularly your skillful ones. It is definately in the best interests of the club to let them both go, and it works for me.

I was talking of Carvell and Dykes.

Ok.

Carvell wanted to leave so the club could do nothing about that and Dykes is an unfortunate crock so had to be let go.

Indeed they were and we've never come close to repeating that amazing pairing since.

1 Good thing to come out of it then

CT is a world class goal kicker but:

He lacks pace
And has an 'Iffy ability with kicking the ball in hand
Plus he is a bit 'light weight' in the tackle

I hope the sea air toughens him up for you!!!

xxx

I can't wait for the Thorman and Horne combo to get going, Thorman is an organiser with a good kicking and passing game whilst Horne is a good runner. They will compliment each other well, and not an Aussie accent between them.

We needed somebody on the pitch who has a good kicking game to give the wingers a chance CT on his day can do this ..and who knows if Hull have got other players in the pipeline ..even if they haven't there is still time to try to see if any players come on the market ..the season doesn't start till Feb 2009 anything could happen

I think this is a positive step for the future.

Teams who win the Grand Final have stability in the halfs. We lost that stability (which we had been building) 2 years ago. You don't get stability signing big name Australian halfs, they will give a couple of years, but not the long term that you need. If you're lucky, you might get a young NZ player who'll stay most of his career- like the Paul Brothers and give you that stability. Otherwise, you have to go with English halfs to achieve this who will stay with you over the long term.

No team has yet won a grand final starting an Australian in the halfs.

Only wigan have got to the final with an Australian half (twice and it was two different players Peters and Johns who moved on quickly)- moves which preceeded a period opf decline for the Wigan club amid a general lack of a stabile core which they still suffer from today.

Only the Pauls are non english halfs to have started and won a GF in that position.

Otherwise, an English half back combination has dominated the successful teams of superleague.

Now of course it has to be the right pairing and the players have to be good enough. But I'd rather see us try to build on a stable basis rather than find a quick fix big name Australian.

Use the Quota places (if we need to - I don't think we need to fill them just because they are there) in impact positions, but not in core positions in the squad.

Good luck to Chris and Rich. Frankly- none of us know how they will gel unitl they get out there. Both have class, both have dipped (one mainly because of injury), but both still have stacks of potential in the right set-up.

i agree with the eclipse completely, horne is a brilliant runner and thorman will be able to complement him with his passing game and he has a much better tactical kicking game then horne. i think people should give thorman a chance, he was in a struggling team last year just like Hull and when you look at some of the personal changes that have gone on at Huddersfield he was a very consistent player for them and has a bag of experience including nrl. i think we should wait and see but i think it is a brilliant signing for hull and cant wait to see him play alongside horne.

Very good post.

Still worries me that if one of them gets injured we have to start moving to many players around to cover our half back position.I would like to see someone else in the s/h position,put Thorman at o/h and let Horne go in the centre to add a bit of speed to our backs.