He'll get a clean slate from me from the start regardless of where he was born as would any other coach that might have been appointed.

He needs to make the quality of our performances consistently better over the next two years. He needs to avoid rank embarrassing performances and record breaking defeats. He needs to smarten up the club's recruitment performance in conjunction with the other new staff. In culture terms he needs to change the perception of the overall squad from being a bunch of well paid contractors to a team of like minded individuals with a fear of losing and a fear of performing in a sub standard fashion.

If he can do those things - not easy - then the material measures such as league position and cup runs will fall into place. I think Gentle went because AP didn't see enough improvement this year after a reasonable first year - and AP clearly lost confidence in Gentle to take the firm actions needed to succeed. If Radford can demonstrate continuous improvement in the next two years then he will have done better than Gentle. If not then we're back to square one.

I'm beginning to understand why!

Not necessarily. Do you think if we had put in a half decent performance against Hudds last week that we were guaranteed a win? I don't. In the same round of the playoffs last year we put in a better performance against Warrington and we still lost. Better performances do not necessarily mean we will win those games.



I agree that improved performances in fixtures we narrowly lost would result in more points but as I have already pointed out I don't believe that would be the case in games were we were hammered. If Radford can take those sort of defeats and turn them into narrow defeats next season then is that not an improvement and a sign of progress? I think you've already answered that by saying sport is all about winning so anything less than a win will not be good enough for you.

We are not going to turn into a Top 4 team overnight so I just want to see signs that we are heading in that direction (as I did when Gentle was in charge) and my opinion is that more consistent performances on a weekly basis would be one of those signs regardless of result.

Honest question, where do you believe we should be in the table given our current playing roster?

Get you.
I personally find the handball, elbow grease method more rewarding.
As an analogy I'm hoping Radders may possibly be able to apply that in his new tenure.
Affable Pete has departed the building, Rodiron Radders is in the hotseat.

I'm not talking about isolated games like last week, I'm talking about performances overall. If we play better across the board, we should win more games - particularly against those clubs not expected to make the top 8.



That's irrelevant. If we lose narrowly in the games in which we were hammered and win the games we lost narrowly (or some of them) and we get more points.




Yes, but so is winning games we have previously lost narrowly against poor teams.



Not really. When I say sport is about winning I mean that winning fewer games over the course of a season cannot be judged to have been 'an improvement'.



More consistent performances should lead to more wins overall. Unless by 'more consistent' you mean 'consistently poorer'.

We were one win away from 5th this year, and the general feeling is that the squad we had underachieved. That's bearing in mind that we had a fair number of injuries to key players at important times and something like eleven different halfback combinations. Certain elements of the squad may be weaker next year, but we'll also be stronger in some areas as well. All in all, I'd say the squad will be about the same strength as this year.

With that in mind, I'd say we should be looking at a minimum of 6th, with a realistic shout at 5th. This would not represent a particular improvement in results terms, so the product on the pitch would have to be noticeably better as well. What we must not do is go backwards, whether that means fewer wins, a lower league position or poorer performances.

I was talking about those isolated games though. Repeatedly. I think its more important that we close the gap between our best and worst performances.



If we finish with, say, two more points next season but finished seventh in the table would you consider that successful or a failure?



I agree that that would also be an improvement. All I'm saying is I would much rather see us get rid of the really bad performances and if we do then I will consider that an improvement.



Maybe not in terms of league position but if we are bridging the gap between those best and worst performances then that is an improvement in my opinion.



This is Hull FC. We're probably looking at consistently poorer!

Fair answer.

I know. But it's missing the point to say we can be more consistent and just narrow the margin of defeat in those games. Consistency, by its very nature, has to apply to all the performances. So if we play consistently better, yes, we'll narrow the margin of defeat in certain games, but we'll also move from narrow defeat to winning in others.



Absolutely. Taking Wembley and last week aside, some of our worst performances came in defeats to Cas, Wakey and Bradford. All games we could/should have won, if we'd played to anything like our potential.



I'd consider it highly unlikely since the team in 7th usually has around 28 points and has never had more than 29 (once) since we went to a 14 team division.



But as I keep trying to point out, you can't improve performances and still win fewer games. It doesn't work like that. If we improve our attack and still lose more games, then our defence must be poorer. If the overall standard of performance improves, we will, by definition, win more games.

I'm failing to see how an improvement in performances overall wouldn't improve our final standing?

Okay, okay I give up! What I want to see is that gap between our best performance and worst performance narrowed. And I consider our worst performances to be games that we don't contest, not the games we lose narrowly. The narrow defeats I find frustrating but games such as Widnes away and last week are just humiliating in my eyes.

If we can cut out those performances then I will consider that acceptable and a sign of improvement.

We were absolutely awful against Wakefield and Cas (to name but two). The reason we only lost narrowly is because we were playing Wakefield and Cas, not because our performance was any better.

Are you just going to argue with everything I say?