briers is the epitome of inconsistency. Brilliant one match, dire for teh next 6. He has improved it a bit under smith but still far from the likes of sean long for the last 10 years.

cooke may have been this "exceptional" player in a Hull side with little creativity but in comparison to other half backs in the NRL and SL he was average.

He's now below average BTW

I'm not understating his improtance to Hull. he was our main pivot, of course he was important. What I'm saying is that in SL and NRL terms he was/is easily replaceable. It's been the failing of successive coaches and the board which have meant we haven't done it effectively.

Thats what I mean when saying in 2004 we were on the verge of going to the next level consistantly and never.

Cooke became so important because we never gave him a supporting act in the attacking department. That may have been Brough in different circumstances.

Ok but just to clarify cos i think we're going round in circles here, Jake started by saying Cooke wasnt even an average player, we've since all agreed that actually he was a very good player for FC (exceptional imo) although as our only pivot we were one dimensional as a team and we've not replaced him. There's a consensus that as a player he is replaceable but we've just not managed to do it, i'd agree with that. All of the points above about been replaceable dont remove the fact though that for a 7 or 8 year period he was a top notch performer for us and was one of the main driving forces behind our success of the time.

Sorry Dave I jumped into the thread and was never replying to Jake saying Cooke wasnt even average!

My point is that although Cooke was a top player for Hull and became so important as our ONLY pivot we did have better options pre 2005 and should have developed the team differently from then.

Hope that clears up my angle anyhow....

Also I am not sure how many people belive Cooke was a 'top' performer for 7 or 8 years for Hull. I know certain Rovers fans who insisted he was garbage right up until 2004!

That is not my opinion BTW...

No doubt the same ones that held the view that Briscoe wasn't fit to lace cockaynes boots.

He wasn't at the time

Careful - we wouldn't want this thread drifting into a discussion of things relevant to Hull KR.

19 pages and he 's still with us tch!

Thats the way the cookie crumbles.

I would agree with all of that. It was criminal the way Hull didnt kick on from the foundations they developed in 2004/05. I thought they were well placed to start a period of domination but fortunately it wasnt to be!
Could it have been different if Danny Brough had been given more responsibility, thus taking a bit of pressure off Cooke and making Hull a bit more unpredictable in attack?

Unfortunately Brough simply wasn't ready at the time. It's easy to look at him today and wonder why he didn't make more impact during his time at FC, but the simple truth is that he was nothing like the player then that he is now - and he had fitness and attitude problems as well.

The bigger problem was that following our injury-hit end to the 2004 season the incoming John Kear decided to spread the wages bill more thinly among a larger group of players. This started the whole slide into a team full of mediocre players that is only now beginning to be addressed. Cooke became our only playmaker when in 2004 we had players across the park who could be creative and play football.

only for another 9 months max