I'd say apart from Westerman and Shannon he's been amongst our best players this season, but hey, don't let that get in the way of a good rant.

What was our half-back pairing when we took Leeds apart at the KC last year? I remember Stilts playing at 6 but who was our half?

Seymour I believe, with Whiting named at 6 but basically and extra second row with Manu.

Both Gentle and Seymour's finest moments at FC so far.

We give Horney another year on the back of one good game, Yeamo an extension too

And the extra year given to OMeley

Both Wane & McDermott took over clubs, that had the foundations (youth) & playing structures of a successful club ,already in place.(Originally instilled from Maguire & Tony Smith - IMO )

Both clubs gambled, and for them it worked. also both coaches could've used their own style, but they carried on the same processes.

Gentle has inherited nothing, no youth, no winning culture at all.

He badly needs leaders in his team, 'too many Indians,not enough Chiefs.'

Yep , You reap what you sow .

Horney isn't an organiser of any description, never has been, never will be. His loyalty to the club cannot be faulted, he still has skills that we can utilise, although they have diminished with age. But please don't ever expect Rich to take a game by the scruff of the neck and sort it out.

Is Agar really as bad as you thought or was it more the people running the club at the time?

Hull achieved 6th under Agar and that is not to be sneezed at. I know it isn't where you want to be but look at the teams above that - just who is going to drop out of the picture to let Hull (or anyone else) in?

Unless one of the big 4 hit financial problems similar to Bradford I just don't see any of them going back into the pack. The task for anyone wanting to rock the big 4 boat is enormous - and then there is Catalans & Huddersfield to contend with too.

The structures and investment at these clubs are long standing, the foundations are rock solid and in a salary capped competition, people like Marwan Koukash and Adam Pearson can shout as loud as they like but there simply is no quick fix. And that remains the case, be your coach Agar or Gentle.

The fact is that for all the talk, the bulk of Hull's recent recruitment has come from Hull KR, Salford & Castleford. That's the only way it could be - tell me one reason why a player would leave a top 4 club for Hull? Only if they were to be the marquee top dollar signing like Ellis. And you can only afford have one of those. And even then at the back end with injury ever more a feature.

Some Hull fans don't understand the problem but it's obvious really. Owners change, coaches change but gullible Hull FC fans remain.

Every regime, every coach promise the same thing. Every time Hull FC fans fall for it hook line & sinker. What's the point of actually providing the real thing when the Hull FC gullible fan will buy into any old bull year after year?

That's your problem!

If Richard Horne was our biggest issue, we'd be laughing. Far more pressing problems, in no particular order are:
No scrum half
Lack of line breaking prop
NO dummy runners
Poor support play
Lack of kicking game (partly due to scrum half, but not entirely)
No quality, experienced centre

Horne started the season as 3rd/4th choice half and has delivered well as such. Low on the list of things to fix at present IMO.

Not much to argue with there, chief.

I'm not sure what your point is about the volume of players. As I've already said, I know you can't drop all who deserve it and I'm not advocating that we do. My point is that we've dropped NONE of them. Our players are complacent IMO.

And regarding your next post, I'm not sure anybody is blaming solely the coach. Some are questioning him along with the players now though, which is perfectly justifiable.

Just one point; the coach who is not to blame another still keeping faith with 'average players'. It's not all down to him, but I'm not seeing how he can be coming off scot-free in all of this. Our deficiencies are too numerous to be entirely down to the lack of quality in a few key positions.

Our lack a scrum half is clearly a huge problem, but I think believing that getting a new one will cure all our woes is delusional. There's a hell of a lot of improvement we should be able to make without even changing our personnel, so it has to be questioned why we haven't.

Numerous deficiencies no doubt but a pareto analysis of them would reveal that the single most pressing weakness in our squad is a top quality general to run the team on the field once they have left the dressing room. Our nearest player to that specification is Holdsworth and when he doesn't play then other deficiencies become more apparent. As I said earlier we won the Challenge Cup with the current Batley coach at the helm but also two or three top quality organising players to enact the plan on the field.

As I've said, I don't want them all dropping, but even just 1 or 2 could at least show the team that they have to play for their place, so then even the ones who survive might up their game so that they aren't next.