Quote ="fixem"One thing which has not been mentioned on the forum about last night's game is the kicking by both sides. In this aspect Hull were clearly second best. Gale was able to direct his up and unders high and accurate. Apart from Talanoa's unfortunate lapse Hull defended this bombardment well. Invariably, however, the player defending the kick, usually Shaul, was dumped to the ground where he caught the ball, immediately putting the team under pressure and on the backfoot. Hull's up and unders, on the other hand, were not so well directed or accurate. The team was not able to get up quick enough to attack the defending player, who was mostly able to return the ball 10 metres or so before being tackled.
In recent games Connor has been putting in the up and unders with no little skill. The Hull attackers were able to get up on the defender and put him under pressure. Why did Connor not do some of the kicking last night?
The same problem when attacking the line. Gales kicks were varied, accurate and mostly along the ground. Again Hull did well to defend these, but you always felt that they were under pressure and a try would come at any moment. Hull's kicking strategy on the sixth tackle was woeful. I cannot remember one occasion when Cas appeared to be pressurised from the type of kicks to which Gale was subjecting Hull.
Radford wants Hull to be more savvy when attacking. An improved kicking game would help.
In my opinion Hull were the better team last night, but they do constantly shoot themselves in the foot. Gifting sides like Cas easy tries (they did it in the cup tie as well) is not clever, especially when Hull seem to have to work for their tries. The more Hull concede easy tries the more opponents will turn up expecting Christmas to arrive at some time in the game.'"
Good post
