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.

Sums it up for me. All that has happened this season is that our game plan has been to use this so called massive pack to steam roller over teams and it's turned some likely close defeats into close wins. Fair enough, however it doesn't smack of a great change in our game plan to me.

I'm also at a loss to remember many occassions where we have actually been far and away better in the forwards than the opposition. To me our pack lacks pace and guille. It's all about trying to smash it up down the middle and force teh opposition into submission. It's why when we do win it's by narrow margins. This myth about our so called massive, aggressive pack is purely a myth

"So called injury to Hall"??????

Absolutely right. We've been pushed around by supposedly inferior/smaller/younger packs on many occasions and on Saturday there was only Moa winning collisions. Our forwards often just look tired to me apart from the ones we take off - Moa , Lauacki - of course who tend to be fresh!!!??

Who are the players that are going to do the off the ball running to make space by holding up the oppositions defensive line for our 3/4s though ?

Well that's for the coaches to sort out, it's not rocket science, well at least it shouldn't be.

Surely that is the first step, turn the close defeats into wins and start climbing the ladder in terms of places. Having done that this season we now have to take the next step of being able to expand on that style of play and start dominating teams and winning games more compfortably. That's the challenge to RA and the team.

If it's not rocket science then why are we 2 1/2 into agar's reign and it still isn't happening?

Agreed. How are we likely to do that with basically the same forwards we have now?

do you see him as a permanant fixture in the centre next year?i would go with that personally,we have looked better out wide with him there,just dont think agar will do this tbh......

Why do we need a 5 year plan, when it can be done much quicker by getting a real head coach?

Wigan and Warrington did it in one season!