I mentioned after the Wigan game in Wollongong that Shaul was far too shallow at full back which easily enabled Marshall to outpace him twice on the outside (as well as once last season).
Today, for Webster's try, for me, he is far too shallow. Any break through the line and he has no chance of being in a position to affect a tackle. If he stands slightly deeper and doesn't over chase the play then he would have a chance. I also think his positioning is at fault on our own line. Huddersfield at home and now Cas away we have conceded tries from short kicks from dummy half and he hasn't been in the picture - he stands in the line when his job is to protect the in goal area not be a defender

I agree - he is a full back that very rarely saves tries.

The grubber kick try was awful. On replays you could see he started to go the other way (presumably thinking Gale would get the ball), then when it went the other side he couldn't get there in time.

Totally dumb in my opinion. He had to wait to see which way the ball was going before setting off! The play the ball was central by the posts and he is very quick over first 10 meteres. He could have covered either way.

He seems to have gone backwards so far this season

Wouldn't be surprised to see connor at FB on Friday

I just cant see a place in Super league for Shaul once his pace has gone down.

Defensively he is all over the place, comes up with crucial errors when catching kicks and really stifles our attack when he comes into the line.

Sounds like we've found our scapegoat for this season.

Quite agree. Not his best game but he's generally good and played very well against St George. He's never been a great one on one tackler but his fielding of kicks is usually good. The low bright sun made catching high balls extremely difficult, Cas weren't too good with them either.

Not at all.

Apart from the dropped bombs which I can excuse on this occasion the rest is things I have been saying for a while now.

Our attack suffers greatly due to his poor positioning and ponderous nature. Think this gets overlooked because he is a good runner and scores the odd outstanding try.

We need more from him than that though.

Some are touting him for England/GB but for me he is nowhere near an International full back.

had a poor game against cas, but imo has the X factor we need, some of his tries last year not many would have scored, but his positioning has gone amiss this year,

Shaul had a shocker on Saturday, thats generally agreed.

However, spin the clock back 12 months and he has a night mare of a game at Huddersfield, dropping the ball whilst unchallenged on a number of occasions. We won that game easily so it was brushed over a little at the time.

Shaul then went on a great run of form.

Lets give him a break, but he need to be aware (from the coaching staff) that with competition for places, there are no guarantees if he has another below par performance.

If I was Radders I'd threaten him with physical violence again.
It worked last time, apparently.

Shaul has some top quality attributes; pace to burn, agility, evasion etc - he's probably the best broken field runner in SL & scores some great tries.

However, there are reasons he didn't get picked for England, despite quite a lot of Hull fans banging the drum for his inclusion, with Bennett going for Ratchford & Lomax, and eventually moving Widdop there.

Reasons being, he doesn't have either the handling ability or timing to chime in down the channels and make a pass, nor the positioning (as he OP mentioned) in defence. He has time on his side though, it can all be learnt.

As for the comment about him becoming the new "scapegoat", thanks for that contribution. We're well within our rights as fans to discuss a players flaws, providing it's fair, constructive and not personal.

not often i agree with you but you are spot on here.
Two poor displays against Wigan and Castleford but he was very good against St George and showed that an off the cuff player with a bit of pace can be very effective against Australian defence systems.
Doesnt help with Connor getting on his back regularly.

He's bounced back after stinkers before, will probably score a screamer or two this week. If not maybe a game at Donny will help him regain some confidence.

Shaul isnt the reason why our attack constantly breaks down. I've been banging on about this for years, but our attack is still too sideways. The way you create overlaps is by running in straight lines. Catch the ball, take a few steps forward to commit a defender. Then pass. We catch the ball, run in the general direction of the cornerflag, then pass. Its too easy to defend, the opposition just has to keep sliding and eventually we have run out of space and have to cut back inside.

As for his defensive positioning. He makes bad reads from time to time like all players do (he wasnt nearly as at fault for the Webster try as Minichiello was for example). But generally his positioning on kicks and his organising of the defensive line seems sound. Although its good to know we have so many experts on the finer details of the full back position.

As good as Shaul is in many facets of full back play, he clearly lacks in the attacking fullback stakes. If he was as good as we all think he is why was he not selected for England?

Yet Ratchford and Lomax were..even though Lomax wasn't first choice at Saints and Ratchford is a mistake machine. Even then they were moved aside for Widdop.

What do these three players have that Shaul does not? He does not create space or tries for the outside backs.

We cannot blame the whole team for this.

try assists 2017 - spot the odd one out:

Hardaker 18

Ratchford 12

Lomax 11

Tomkins 8 (didn't play till June)

Shaul 4

But it is the whole team. When Shaul catches the ball, the opposition either match us man for man or even have an extra man. That’s to do with the structure and what’s happening 1, 2, or 3 passes before. Shaul, I agree, isn’t the most creative of full backs but his job is made a hell of a lot harder by the attack structure.

Some unkind things said about Shaul on this thread. He’s been asked to take the ball up from acting half more this season. His one on one tackle in the second half on the Cas rampaging forward was absolute copy book. When he drops the ball, it’s a glaring mistake because he stands out more. People asking for him to be dropped is ludicrous. IMO.

you are right. Jamie Shaul is working very hard having to compensate for the loss of Houghton by taking a lot more runs from dummy half than he would normally.He had a great game against St George but the thread is about his positioning which does let him down at times.
I have said many times that if Jamie had a bit of Rankin in him with the natural ability to chime into the attacking line and produce the pass then he would no doubt be in the England squad.

Imagine how much stick he'd get if he hadn't scored the winning try in our first ever wembley win

"Chime" must be the most overused stevoism ever. It doesn't even mean anything to non stevo devotees

Great, one statistic. How about tries scored, metres gained, average gain per carry, clean breaks, tackle busts? Nobody denies that passing isn't his strong point and looking at the way the England team played his style doesn't fit. That doesn't make Shaul a bad player though.

Would you rather have Ratchford's 12 assists (a subjective stat) and 1 try or Shaul's 17 tries and 4 assists?
Or Tomkins less than productive 5.49 average gain against Shaul's 9.52?

Hardaker is the only one who doesn't have noticeable areas of weakness across his on field game and is the best all round on the field. Off it of course is a different story and would you really want him?

Shaul is not perfect by any means but his error rate is similar to the other leading full backs. Yes I would like him to continue to improve but the scapegoating going on here is ridiculous. Then again 3 years ago the reason for some poor attacking play by Hull was apparently solely down to Danny Houghton - you don't get the experts saying that now, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those experts are currently saying our attack is worse when he's missing.

This thread has escalated into something other than what I first mentioned. I haven't mentioned his link up play, as he offers us different things in attack. It was to do with his defensive positioning, standing to shallow to not allow him to react to a break (Marshall x 3 times, Webster at the weekend), and his positioning when defending our goal line - staying in the line, rather than defending the in goal. If you look at the McMeeken try from the weekend, Shaul should be shadowing the ball, he should be in line with the guy kicking the ball allowing him to get to the ball, but he is 5-10metres from where he needs to be:

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This isn't scapegoating, it is trying to see reasons why we are conceding tries so that we can win more rugby matches

Problem is when we score a try from Sneyd's boot it's a great kick, when we concede a try from a kick it's poor defending.

I agree with you about the positioning for Marshalls tries but The Webster try should have been stopped by Griffin who made a hopeless attempt to tackle him.
Shaul was alert to the McMeeken try and had set off to cover the kick but somehow tripped himself up in the in goal area otherwise he would have been able to clear the ball before it was touched down.
Have a look at the replay.

Simple - play him at hooker
He has all the attributes and sh*t off a stick darting through the A gap with a tired defence tackling our big forwards