Quote: Little Robin Redhead "It's a bit early to start comparing him to Agar. I do get your point though.
The players do have to take responsibility for missing tackles they way they have done all season.
Is Sandercock getting the game plan wrong? Are players just not sticking to it? Or are we just not that good?
Do or can players take the dicision to ditch the game plan during the match if they feel it's not working? Or is that a complete no, no?'"
Comparisons with Agar is Hull FC fans attempting to shape reality to match their hopes. It's not meaningful or useful from our POV. I see no resemblence at all, beyond that which all coaches share when their team isn't performing well or consistently.
O/T Gentle has done well, no doubt, but he's had a competent 7 who is fit more often than not, which Agar never did. Hull's 'key indicators'
were surprisingly good last year, they 'just' had no cutting edge. Also, early on in 2012 at least, they had relatively few injuries. They count it as a misfortune that the recent injuries stopped them competing with Hudds/Wigan, but they'd have been underdogs anyway - it could be argued that it was better to get battered by those teams than to have run them close with full-strength teams, after earlier dropping points due to injuries against weaker opposition.
I think we'd gone as far as we could with Morgan's tactical approach (and tbf, it was a decent way). It worked up to a point, but ultimately was limited in ambition and scope. Perhaps that was an acknowledgement of the limitations of our squad. It isn't pretty right now, but I like to think we're trying to move towards being like Wigan.
If they play well for 20 minutes, they can win a game, whereas if we play poorly for 20 minutes we've probably blown it.
A coach is, IMO, worth a only few % points. Albeit they can be crucial. Mick Potter took Saints to the GF (twice?), but hasn't so far even got Bradford into the play-offs. I'd hoped for a more immediate effect from Sandercock, like Nathan Brown at Hudds. It hasn't happened. But 11 points from 13 games, only 5 of them at home, is hardly a massive regression. It was 40-6 at the DW last year, iirc. It maybe feels worse because Hull look to be on the up, but that should only matter in terms of banter.