If I'm right, I believe we've only had 5 first team players ever present in the first five games. Shaul, Griffin, Sneyd, Taylor and Sao. You could count Connor too, but he missed half a game today. I think Lane as been ever present too, but not sure he'd make our best 17 if all fit.

It's not that easy to be producing your best stuff week to week, when you have heavy disruption to the continuity of your team like that. It just so happened we got these disruptions during a tough run of games. That's just the way it goes sometimes.

The main thing now is to try and pick ourselves back up after a tough to take defeat, and we have to do it quick, by Friday, because Wakefield won't be feeling sorry for us

Another failure of a season and fans walking away would be much more expensive.

I think we have Wakefield next week, and I think we may (again) struggle against them

Exactly the same as we said today. He looked a decent player again today.

Its true that injuries and suspensions have played their part, but we have chosen to go with a larger squad which should help lessen the impact.

At clubs on a lower budget such as Wakefield if a big name player gets injured they are down to youth players, not someone like Lane who has played 35 times across 3 seasons now. The problem we have is that this group of 'squad players' dont make enough impact. Lane wasnt bad today, but never changes a game either.

You then have the question of if we didnt have so many squad players could we invest in 1 or 2 top class players instead. Theres pros and cons with both approaches when it comes to squad size.

It's been widely reported, seems everyone else is aware of this.

This always gets brought up yet we have nearly 9k pass holders after 2 average seasons.

I don’t think it matters what the fans think to an extent.
AP lost 300K last year, and has budgeted for a £300K loss for this year.
He hasn’t done that to finish 6th or 7th.
This year is make or break for sure. We’ll either be pushing for the Grand Final or searching for a new coach.

Fair enough but those players got us into a commanding lead today, threw it away, managed to get us ahead again only to mess it up. Symptomatic of the last 7 years

I dont beleive thousands will walk away, but theres clearly a good 4-5k who are 'interested' in the club and will go to the big games like the derby but not 'standard' home games. We need more of these fans to be passholders if we ever want to become a consistent top team and to not have Pearson funding losses.

For a few years now youve been more likely to see a loss than a win at the KCOM, and often the games have been atmosphereless and dull. Today was an interesting game in fairness, but there isnt a great vibe in the stands again.

Sounds like Leeds Rhinos are set to appoint Lee Gilmour to their coaching set-up.

Today was totally unacceptable and has been replicated so many times through Radford's tenure. Record losing streak, consecutive highest SL losses.
Any other coach would have been relieved of their duties a long time ago. Radford cannot simply dine out on his CC wins forever.
This is not an opinion based on 5 games of a new season.
This is probably the strongest team that Radford has assembled at great cost but yet we produce the same dire rugby with the odd flashes of brilliance and the same shocking results.
That was one of the strongest teams we could have put out today, there are no excuses, that team should have been competitive for a full 80 minutes and not thrown such a lead away.

Agreed. My point is that I doubt there's cash available now to do pay offs and trade ups. Maybe change will happen at the end of the season if it is going to.

But that's the point you don't know.
Why would you need a payoff on a rolling contract?
Adam has made a huge investment in the playing roster, he now needs to replicate that investment in a coach now whilst the season is not yet over.
To get a change now is a must in order not lose floating fans and pass holders for next season and to see some return on his money.

Surely it depends on the length of the rolling period? It could be 12 month rolling for example. If you think AP has the means to and will fork out for severance, and to get a release of this mythical top class coach wanting to come to Hull FC, and the associated incremental salary for him and his team, well, that's lovely. I doubt it will happen personally.

Never said he would. Instead of just saying "Radford out" I thought would say who I'd like as coach or look at trying to get in

Every single year clubs in a worse financial position than us change their coach when things aren't going well. If Pearson can't make the funds available to get the right coaching set up in place then he shouldn't be in charge of a club like this. It's literally the most important part of any team.

Well, maybe we should select the best qualified candidate from the group of alternative owners waiting to invest.

AP has a decision to make as either he sticks with Radford for the rest of the season and sees another season & missed opportunity wasted. Or he makes a bold decision and says thanks for your efforts but you’ve had more than enough chances.

Either is a gamble granted but the club will I feel do better for making the change than another season of excuses. The fans backed the club due mainly to the players recruited and the hope that brought. It’s been pretty clear for the past few seasons that LR had taken the club as far as he could and the evidence is there now in the last 4 games. That hope for me is evaporating fast as nothing has changed in the way we play and the buck stops with LR.

Carrying on with LR will I fear do more damage than making a change now.

Firstly, you have no idea who might want to invest in the club should the opportunity arise. For all we know there might some really good candidates. But anyway, that's not really the point. I don't believe that we don't have the funds to change the coaching set up. We aren't talking about Trent Robinson here. An up and comer with some new ideas just out of his apprenticeship would be fine by me (I like the suggestions of Craig Fitzgibbon and Matty Head) and wouldn't be madly expensive. If Pearson has thrown all of his resources at the playing staff when there are question marks over the coaching staff then that is a big mistake from him. Although, as I said, I don't believe that's the case.

I understand your views. My point is that I feel AP has made his 2020 choices backing Radford and this squad, and that the cost required to enact any change, even more so one requiring a material investment, may not be achievable this season.

I sort of disagree on the last point as I think he knows he leverages what is a relatively cheap but highly committed coaching team that have won silverware twice. Fitzgibbon and Head are both inexperienced, more so than Gentle was. If a change were to happen I'd rather we did it in a longer term managed way at the end of the season than pulling the trigger 5 games in and scrabble about for quality.

Would two games have made any difference to your verdict on Radford?

Let's say, hypothetically, we win that Semi final against Warrington last year and get back to Wembley. And let's say we beat 1 of either Salford or Huddersfield or St Helens at home, at the back end of last season and make the top 5. Do you think you would be in a different mindset right now?

For all the criticism, we were not a million miles off, and I believe he's improved his squad this season from last, enough to have an even better crack at it.

Let's say, hypothetically, Sneyd skews one of the kicks at Wembley and we dont win that challenge cup......

You can change any scenario to suit an argument, but for me, this same rhetoric has been consistent for the last 3 years now and its becoming boring. Its only the coaching staff that hasn't changed in that time

I've been hearing we're not far off for years. It's the same as let's give it 'til Easter and who's available if we let Radford go. These and other tired reasons for not doing anything are why we are where we are. What was it Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again while expecting different results. Change needs to happen.