Good point, well made.

Wibble.

105 for 0 now sandra

So true. If you hang about long enough you soon realise who is full of poop, but as long as it is well intentioned and good natured it shouldn't matter. Who comes on here to be held to account? I thought Mike Ratu was a canny signing, Willie Mason was exactly what we needed to take us to the next level and Sandercock precisely the sort of coach needed see the club evolve. Amongst other dubious calls.

On Sandercock, I do feel that the club and fans have been a little guilty of giving mixed signals. The 'give the kids a run, these games don't matter' attitude at the tail end of last year was clearly rubbish, if we're now saying '2 from 13' or whatever it is. It didn't make that much material difference given the injuries we had, but if we do end up with a new coach, or if Sandercock turns it around, then I hope he realises that his primary objective is winning games, despite what people might say.
Developing the kids is the primary objective of the U-19 and academy coaches, providing the head coach with the tools he needs.
All that said, it his responsibilty to get the balance right and he hasn't so far. We've got a good amount of talent and potential in the squad, but a lot of it is very raw. I think he might just have asked too much of himself. It's like we overcompensated for previous years and suddenly bought into the patented SmokeyTA approach, thinking we had more stomach for losing than we do - or anybody does, in fact.
But I wasn't saying that 6 weeks ago. Changed my mind, innit?

From where I sit his biggest problem is not playing the young kids it's his inability to correct your failings from last season and the season before ect ect

2013 - you are letting in 31 points a game.
2012 - 27 points a game - finished 10th
2011 - 25 points a game - 7th
2010 - 23 points a game - 7th
2009 - 19 points a game - 4th

I am sure he came out with "We need to work on our defence" when he joined and it's a case that he just as not addressed it.

That 2009 team had a lot of experience, proven players more or less in their prime, who'd had 2008 to gel. Defence is all about consistency and that, IMO, is what younger players tend to lack - they have the enthusiasm and energy, but you're going to get errors. You usually get away playing a couple if they're surrounded by experience, but if you're up at 5 or 6 greenhorn players, that is more errors and fewer old heads around to help them out. It probably isn't the only thing, but it is likely part of it.

So you have answered the reasons why your not doing so well then, a decsion to go with youth 5 or 6 you said.

Maybe Sandycock is doing the best he can with what he has, Hudge said they will not spend upto the maximum salary cap and it's recognised that the p[layers are young and going to make mistakes but who else can you put in instead. Your not going out to buy in the marklet.

Going back to our better seasons in 2008 / 2009 / 2010 I noticed how much our defence used to drop off when Mick Vella was spelled. It was really noticable to the point I expected us not to be able to defend our line with him off the pitch. It was never noticeable what he actually did but it certainly seemed to work. Unfortunately we haven;t replaced that element of the team, whether its experience, knowledge or organisation it may be a fact that one / two players could make all the difference.

There is a lot of inexperience in our backs at the moment, our defence in the last 20m is very dodgy, no-one seems able to direct it.

After the Widnes game i told a mate of mine who couldn't attend, that even though we had a 34-0 half time lead, we only managed to win the game because Widnes bombed so many chances and where really pap, and that a half decent side would of seen us off....Sunday proved how wrong i was.
After what we've seen so far, can Sandercock, or anyone else for that matter, make a gold purse out of a pigs ear?
Only time will tell.
I'll be there on Sunday but i don't expect a very good day.

The backs aren't the route of the problem though, it's the forwards. Teams find it way too easy to get a roll on around the ruck. I've noticed the last couple of games our drop off has coincided with Carlile & Horne both being in the middle. Didn't matter vs Widnes & shouldn't have mattered vs Salford but momentum is difficult to halt.

Maybe we could trade Sandercock & Gentle for a couple of days a week. Gentle could teach us how to tackle & Sandercock can teach Hull how to attack. We should both improve.

It is mitigation, but as I said earlier in the thread (or maybe in another one), we still shouldn't be [ithis[/i weak, [ithis[/i regularly. Lower end of mid-table, fine - but we're not that far under the cap by all accounts. It is a thinner squad than previous years and he's had a worse time with injuries than Morgan did, but even so.

I think we need to get over the slightly back to front 'if you're young enough, you're good enough' thing and let him focus on winning, or if it doesn't happen then the same goes for whoever succeeds him.

At this stage it looks like he hasn't signed enough players who can get poop done. We seem to have talented but flakey all over the park. Upscaling what he did with Uate to half a squad - ambitious.

In some ways I think he'd leave a decent enough legacy, if it comes to that. Easier act to follow than Morgan, a good number of promising players, good in attack, a more professional feel to things - a couple of strong characters added to the team and lot of work on defence and we could well be... average.

Wonder what revelations are going to be in the hull daily mail about the club Tom

Briscoe? Larvin did say he'd be making him an offer.

@HDMAlCoggan: If you're a Hull KR fan, you won't want to miss tomorrow's HDM for exclusive revelations about your club

Must be good news, otherwise you [uwould[/u want to miss it.

Ha ha good one

god knows what it is prob a new addition to the team a new ball boy or sumet

Cheers I'm rubbish at all this attaching stuff

SirStan will know, he's Charlie Mullan's man on the inside.

What stan is inside mullan ew grose

Don't like the word "revelations"..... Google it in the news search and the only thing that comes up is negative stories! Ben Barba

(allegedly of course) Pistorius

John Terry

Doesn't sound good to me

revelation [ˌrɛvəˈleɪʃən
n
1. the act or process of disclosing something previously secret or obscure, esp something true
2. a fact disclosed or revealed, esp in a dramatic or surprising way.

Can't wait...

We are signing 6 future England internationals and 2 of the best Halfbacks in the league.

All will be revealed tomorrow.



RRTR

Alison Coggan is the deputy news editor. Sounds interesting.

New deal for Sandercock?

Karl Turner's just been on Radio Humberside, concerned by some major issues at Craven Park.

Seats the wrong colour in the new stand. Not only that, design means some will get wet. Farcical, said Gwilym.

Dr Allam will bail us out. He's our friend
Consider it a gift to the people of Hull.