How the heck did we manage to lose against them? They're shocking!

To be fair, Huddersfield have played an excellent game and strangled KR out of the game

It’s one of those things. For example, we beat Salford who beat Cas who beat us.

Huddersfield are good today -better than they were against us, but HKR look as clueless as we do.
Haha probably answered my own question there.

Hudds run the game from start to finish,
HKR have managed a couple of good wins together but sky totally go over the top about them
Personally I don't think they are any better than us, just get better breakes

Cos that’s the level we’re playing at now

dear me, HK couldn't hit a barn door from a foot today.
Can't lie, I was rooting for KR, but at 18-0 I turned it off predicting 32-6 cos I thought HK might score one by accident lol.
I don't hate Shudds, but ya gotta pick a side...right..?
Anyway, I'm not unhappy about Shudds making it to the final, good on em.
It is interesting that the two losing teams both fielded ridiculously injured players, lomax arguably less ridiculous than linnet, but still.
I could also be persuaded that HK didn't take the game at all seriously, almost preseason like suck it and see.
Not what you want for a prime time tv sports event tbf.

If you do not get all the 50-50 decisions and other teams get good trys chalked of it can happen

I actually thought while hudds played on kr looked disinterested and like it was a end of season game

I think Giants just did a job on them and they missed Coote.

I agree with this… I’ve just seen the highlights and Hudds looked in total control… solid, creative and clinical …

Stoked for Innes Senior as he streaked down the touch line… thought he looked really promising whilst on loan. HKR looked lost without Coote… although they were a bit unlucky with injuries…

Wigan look good…

The one thing that stood out was the importance of a specialist hooker.

Having watched some of it again I have to say the Huddersfield defence was top notch. Like many on here have said, including me, don't stand waiting for the opposition to run at you, get in their faces and Huddersfield certainly did. Perhaps we should try that?

What it shows is that money helps.

Mr Davey has been pumping money into that club for years. He’s had a few false dawns but generally they have always been decent.

Eventually the balance will be right. I don’t think their coach is the genius some contend but he’s a good fit for those teams just under the top level. By that I don’t mean the team I mean expectations and winning pedigree.

Teams go in cycles and that’s what’s happened here. A lot of effort and money will have been used by previous coaches as well as the present and it’s pay back time. Ken knows this.

I think Hudds will prove very stubborn opposition to Wigan. Especially when Wigan gave so much to defeat their great rivals.

It’s there for the taking for Hudds.

For us it’s the juniors route for now because that’s all we’ve got.

Admirable ambition but it’s a gamble a big one. They may be the answer but have to be natured and not rushed because we have failed with the use of the money we had. The one thing we cannot allow however, is for financial prudence to result in relegation and the impact that will have on revenue and the gains we had made as a team.
We will be back to square one and I am sorry but prudence in the championship means stagnation. It is better to speculate now whilst in the SL and easier to recoup the money.

It’s not my ambition I want both. I want us to trust in youth and bring in quality players.

I’m just realistic enough to know that the latter is financially beyond us at present. If anyone can explain where the money would come from I’d be instantly on board but nobody ever does they just moan.

The only way we can bring money in short term is another investor, know any?

The only other one is to sell share in the club to the fans. No idea how practical that is. What I do know is that at present they won’t shift many.

So youngsters will have to be the ones who make the difference.

One point. We were all determined to keep our academy and I still am. However drop the Academy like Salford and bingo there is one extra top player. It’s a hard call, play the short or long game.

It’s usually only the brave and the smart who have the nerve to go long game. The rest of us flounder like worms in bleach.

You are pretty much on the money. Watson has come in at a very good time, the last two coaches had a lot of deadwood to contend with in our side, players on big contracts that weren't pulling their weight and couldn't be got rid of during a period when we were signing anyone and everyone from lower leagues on who looked decent and paying big to get them here (i'm afraid Gaskell was the biggest of them). They were just about all cleared out when he arrived (Ollie Roberts still persists though). Watson has also had enough strength to get rid of anyone who didn't buy into what he was wanting (Sezer was the biggest casualty here) and what you now have is a side with reasonable talent who absolutely are on the same page. Wigan are still big favourites in the final but we have a fighting chance if we can bring it all together on the day like we did yesteday

I’m not sure they are. Wigan put in a massive effort but at no point we’re they better than Saints other than that first fifteen.

Wigan won with a terrific last ditch defence but it was noticeable to me just how easy Saints made yards for the bulk of the game and how easily Wigan were caught out in the fifth.

Wigans attack was also pretty clunk for most of the game with Field virtually invisible. It’s hard to imagine any team can do those heroic's to often, see us and Warrington.

I don’t think the Wigan you will face will be quite as pumped up, you get into them and they will struggle imho.

I was actually chuffed for Wigan to see off an arrogant Saints club but truth is you wouldn’t have wanted to face them in the final.

As for dead wood it’s a horrible but sadly true description. By 2918 Trinity had a team on the verge of competing. Injuries and COVID destroyed that. Sadly much of that team is still with us and it’s well past it’s sell by.

I’m not naming names but there are at least 7 who need moving on of which at least 3 are high profile.

I was absolutely rooting for Wigan, as we definitely wouldn't have beaten saints, as i said on a similar post on our boards, they do what we do, but better, grind opponents down. Wigan this year, with Field and French are more similar in style to Hull KR, and that suits us fine. If our very good pack can get on top of them on the day and Field and French don't get to do what they can do in attack the day could well be ours, but it will need to be a near perfect performance as it was yesterday.

It's tough supporting one of the lower SL sides as you know. You have to offer bigger/longer contracts to entice good players than the bigger teams do, and when you make bad choices in that regards you are then stuck with players who wont go anywhere else because they are on such good deals, which can scupper you for years. Develop a good young player and chances are they will be off to one of the big boys after a couple of years. We were in that position about 3 years ago, and it has taken this long to clear the waters.

I said earlier after we played you that you have nothing to fear relegation wise, Toulouse are a much poorer side than you are this year, and i personally thought you performed very well against us, but building a decent side especially with fewer resources is so tough. For us smaller sides you really do have to grab the opportunities when they come along because if you don't chances are they wont come around again for a very long time. You were a really good side a cpl of years back and it's a shame you couldn't win anything in that window and now have to build back to being competitive again. Such is the fare of a lower half SL supporter!

Money and an excellent coach.

On the plus side, perhaps our narrow loss to Huddersfield wasn't the nightmare performance that many on here suggested.
It was their defence that won the game, helped by finishing most of their sets on their opponents line.

KR were unlucky with injuries and their gamble with Linnet was the wrong call.

Saw a couple of quotes in a discussion between two a hudds fans suggesting the win at Trinity was their best away performance for years… I think the conversation was in a set of comments on a YouTube video…

Sorry but money tends to help you look more excellent. He is clearly a good coach but with Ken’s backing so would most.

Had Kear, Toppo or even Kelly for example had that money we might have had a third star on our jersey by now. No coach at Trinity has ever had any real money since the sixties and certainly not over a long period. So excellence is relative.

I'm finding it difficult to credit Shudds with the win based entirely on their own endeavours.
HK were abysmal, but you can only beat what's put in front of you.
If Shudds strangled them out the game, they did so after HK placed the noose around their own necks and jumped.
Does that translate to Shudds providing a sterner test to the the Pies than Saints, I don't think so.
Whilst I'd love somebody outside the elite to win the tin pot, its still the pies by 20 I reckon, I do hope its closer though.

Wigan did look good and had the bounce of a ball that wins you matches .Think some thing we could learn from Wigan is the way Farall ran as near to the ref as he could when scoring is try The St defender coming across had to change direction because of the refs position .Seen it happen a few times now in matches .Wires scored a try against us were the player ran at the gap that was there because of the gap were the ref was stood

Smarts alegend. Just being very clever. Farrell though has much more in his locker than that. Consistently one of if not the best back rower in England who does everything extremely well. It’s scary to think that he’s actually old enough to be playing against me in a game of masters rugby league, he’s a top notch professional and opposition fans didn’t like him simply because of his name and being Andy’s cousin. The amount of people who say he is over rated is unbelievable. I’d say he’s massively under rated, his attacking skills often get lauded but his defensive work is just as impressive and the man’s a leader.