I was thinking that. Would explain why Hull are tighter at the Cap than many fans envisaged.

But the players still weren't replaced as such.

With regards wages, i wouldn't think that Sharp & Westerman will be earning as much as Cusack, Hall & Calderwood. There must still be enough room for one more quality player IMO..

Yup. Assuming that the same rules were in place last year (and as far as I know they were) then they wouldn't have counted on the cap for last season.

Disagree. Cusack's last year was rumoured to be cheap and can't see Hall having been on much. Doubt Westerman will have come for peanuts. Chuck in the upgrades for Houghton, Tickle, Manu, Whiting etc and I'd doubt we could bring anyone in unless we offloaded a player or two.

what would have happened if king and raynor had elected to see out their contracts? would we have gone over the cap? i would imagine there will be enough room on the cap for one more player,though obviously if the berro rumour is to be believed,we should have a big chunk available?or would we? i just hope the club,don't drag their heels on this,as we are already in to pre-season training.

What makes you think that they had that option?

So Hull win three out of four derby games and finished above Rovers in the league last season and a so called Hull F.C. supporter is saying Rovers are top dogs in the city?.......Intresting.

You can't seriously be counting a pre-season friendly. They lost to us narrowly twice during the regular season and when it really counted they came to our home ground and humiliated us. Having done this they ensured that for the third season running they performed better in the competition than us. It hurts but it's true!

What has this to do with Monaghan?

You're consumed by this result. I was pi$$ed off mightily at the time, but over the course of the season we did better than them and ultimately the win earned them only the right to being embarrassed by Wigan the following week, despite Vella saying they (Rovers) would win the Grand Final. A loss by 17 points when we lost our HB pairing on 58 seconds is not really a "humiliation".

Cheer up. Morgan will be on the back page of the HDM in approximately 5 weeks with his annual article on Rovers doing the double - Mullan can just get last year's and do a "find and replace" 2010 for 2011. That should cheer you up. Your favourite massive signing Mason will be here in the meantime so that should provide a further distraction.

Shame about your second paragraph again, maybe you support Rovers since you spend so much time on their board?

In answer to your first point, if I am 'consumed' by that result it's because it's the result that meant they had a better season than us! As I'm sure you well understand SL is a single competition comprised of a league format and then playoffs, not the separate league and premiership format of old. It's really irrelevant to me that we finished above them in the league as they got further than us in the playoffs and therefore bettered us in the overall competition, regardless of what happened to them in the next playoff round.

Imagine we were leading a match from the 1st to the 79th minute, we then conceded a try in the final minute and lost the game... the way you look at it you'd be saying we'd had a more succesfull game than the opposition

Priceless - look at you getting all riled up and "resorting" to this nonsense. The difference, cockle, is that the content of my posts is not 70% slating FC balanced by 30% praising Rovers.






There are 2 competitions. You seem overly eager to dismiss our major final appearance in 2008 to focus on the league performance and, very specifically, the relative position vs Rovers. To focus on the overall league campaign and the relative postion at the end of it vs Rovers in 2010 is therefore entirely appropriate if you are allowed to dismiss a CC final appearance at Wembley as meaningless.

In 2008 Melbourne storm finished first in the NRL, they were beaten in the first round of the play offs by the NZ Warriors (who finished eigth). Did they have a better season?

They were "top dogs" in Melbourne. Very important that for our good friend Mr Brindley - all that matters in fact.

Pretty vague stuff,I seem to have you on the ropes

According you you I've 'slated' Houghton and Reece Lynn... I challenge you to delve into that database of yours and find just one quote?

I'm not really sure what you're getting at with the challenge cup thing, it's a great competition to win but rarely requires anything like the number and quality of performances that it takes to get to a SL grand final. Are you honestly suggesting that beating Bradford away and then Wakey can somehow negate the evidence of an abysmal SL performance? If you want to talk about CC performances though I recall being knocked out at home in the first round two seasons running.

Depends how their playoff system works I guess. Combining our league standings with playoff results means we finished 7th in the competion and Rovers finished 6th or 5th I believe.

I know many try to argue this but there's no disputing we were paid prize money for finishing 7th, a mate of mine emailed the RFL about it.

So, for clarity, you are saying that because Warriors beat the Storm in the play offs they (the Warriors) had the better season?

I misread what you were saying and corrected myself, see above.

I do apologise for going off topic but the thread veered off a few pages back due to the constant belittling of everything black and white from our new dobbin friend.

You've been pretty sarcastic about Lyne's performances, sneering that you must have missed his brilliant efforts. As a 17-year-old academy international, surely any self-declared FC fan would be backing him to the hilt and be proud of what he's achieved so far? You've said to those referencing Houghton being on the brink of international selection that there are at least 7 better hookers than him in the competition. "Slating" may have overstated it, but you clearly don't rate him as a better than average SL hooker.

What I'm getting at with the CC thing is this. There are 2 competitions. You dismiss us getting to the final of one out of hand as an irrelevance, yet losing to Rovers, also a one-off game, is consuming you. You're being entirely inconsistent.

To be honest, i'm firmly of the belief that the winners of the league leaders shield is by far the "best" team in the comp. If Wigan hadn't of won the GF would they have only been the 2nd best team in your eyes?
You seem to be measuring sucess on a knockout series basis. If that's the case, why so dismissive of our Wembley appearance in 2008?

As you say, slating them was overstating it. Fact is we have seen nothing from Lynn yet in the first team and there are 6 or 7 better hookers than Houghton around based on last season, I did also say he'd improved dramatically. Especially after the likes of Lee flopping so badly I tend to avoid listening to the hype and praising players for doing not much and hope quietly that they'll produce the goods at which time I'm happy to big them up.

I didn't dismiss getting to the CC final but as a barometer of a manager's achievements I don't think one appearance in the final after a fairly easy run to the final counts for much. As I've already said, the result in the final game of last season is so important because it meant that for three seasons in a row Morgan had outperformed Agar in the objective sense, albeit not from your subjective point of view.

I know a lot of people view it like that and I can see why but it is a subjective point of view, objectively the defeat to Rovers in the playoffs meant they finished above us in that years competition.. that's the point I'm making, maybe we did perform better than them during the course of the season but in the record books it counts for nothing. Going on to your Wigan question, the same applies.. perhaps they would have shown themselves to be a 'better team' but whoever had beaten them would have achieved more in the competition than them and that's what I'm interested in.

Gone completely off topic so it's gone.