We have lost 4 top players over the last 2 seasons. Ellis, Watts , Fonua , and to a lesser extent Pritchard.
That has lost us some grunt and experience.
Add Kelly and Connor to the 2016 squad and that is a Grand Final winning side .
What worries me is that Radford has said no new faces for 2019.
Our pack is weaker than the previous 2 years, even at full strength.
Selling Watts has not helped .
Our squad at the moment, is not capable of Radford biff and bash style of play .
Granted injuries have taken their toll and we have done well to hang on to 5th .
But let’s face it , last night showed us all our inept attacking style.
We have no formation, we just stand still and lob the ball to each other.
There is too much reliance on a bit of Kelly or Connor magic . Team have worked it out . We have no plan B to change things around.

With young players, there always comes a time when they hit the wall a bit.
We’ve played them more than we would have liked, and the team looks jaded at the moment.
We do lack a bit of punch in the forwards, which we lost when Watts went. Taylor’s carried the pack the last few weeks. I’d rather lose two or three of the more peripheral players, and bring one quality forward in.

Watts was replaced with Westerman and looked the part till the injury?????

Westerman replaced Watts in the ball handling forward role, but our front row is noticeably weaker now. Especially for a team that is based on getting over the top of teams.

Moving forward, let’s see what happens with Wigan v Wire tonight, shall we. A Wire loss and a few players back when we play them, who knows. Keep playing the best 17 till we’re mathematically out of the chase and I was called a doom and gloomer during the week when I predicted a Hudds backlash to their last game against those who shall not be namedd040.gif

Who knows what our pack is capable of, they’ve only played 2 games together, Hudds and Wigan, first 2 games but think 2 were missing against Wigan now come to think of it, Mini deffo.

Wigan game was Jamie Shaul, Bureta Faraimo, Josh Griffin, Fetuli Talanoa, Albert Kelly, Marc Sneyd, Scott Taylor, Danny Houghton, Mickey Paea, Sika Manu, Mark Minichiello, Josh Bowden. Subs: Jordan Abdull, Dean Hadley, Danny Washbrook, Liam Watts

Green and Masi both injured/unavailable.

I think we're underestimating/missing the go forward impact Griffin and Talanoa add to the side, taking pressure off the pack.

Agree with just about all of this.

Especially about the senior players who need to show a bit more.

For the sake of the careers of a few of the finge players, it maybe worth then either leaving or going out on loan for a season to see if regular game time will improve them. Although I would not class Hadley as a frinnge player, the year he had at Wakey did him the world of good.

We need to free up some cap space to sign an other prop, unless either Mini or Manu are going to go into the front row.

The whole season has been a disaster. I said at the time I thought the Oz trip was a bad idea. We spent a week on holiday, lost against wigan, picked up some injuries then came back and lost a couple of games we would likely have won had we not had the trip. get some suspensions, get some more injuries, sell our 2nd best forward to a near rival, get some more injuries, suspensions etc. Lose loads of away games, get some more injuries, crash out of the cup due to bad disipline, get some more injuries, the season fizzles out, we don't sign anyone new.

Dog shiit

The season never got going for us and is about to end. Let's hope we can still shift plenty of season passes on the back of it

Why do players seemingly fit and healthy 'underperform', why does a team of players underperform/not do things right?
There's continual comments about lack of basic skills like passing
There's continual discussion about all the things I mentioned in my first post plus plenty more where the team doesn't seem to get it right or we go from rocks to diamonds and back again.
Yes there are injuries, yes they disrupt partnerships and you are bringing in a subtly lower quality of player most of the time, however how a team performs on the day is more to do with the coach and that preparation/everything that goes on before a game, during training, during the pre season and even in the off season than it is with the players on the pitch managing their performance individually.

this is why a sports psychologist is massively important, I'll keep saying it and people will still call it bullcrap despite the evidence, go ask a world cup winning coach (that'll be Clive Woodward btw) how important mental preparation is and how players need sports psychologists to get the best out of them.

The question is, could this team win the GF

Shaul
Faraimo
Carlos
Connor
talanoa
Kelly
Sneyd
Green
Houghton
Taylor
Manu
Mini
Westy

Bowden
Paea
Griffin
Hadley

I think it could

I think alongside Radders in a sole attacking coach role he'd be great. No real pressure on him and he's certainly got the pedigree in that side of the game.

I'd rather have someone from outside the Hull bubble. I doubt that there are any plans to add to the coaching team though.