What exactly are the dynamics of Reynolds at Stand Off? He has a bit of pace but he doesn’t exactly have ball handling skill like Connor, which is what I want from my stand off.

I must admit I'm struggling to hold on to the optimism I had earlier in the season. Last 3 performances have been really poor and we don't seem to be able to address the basic errors we keep making.

You remove Reynolds you don't get what you see from Connor.

This game showed that Hull can be just as lacklustre under Hodgson as Radford.

By the same token Hull could raise their game under Radford and probably can do under Hodgson too. So I'm not writing you off next week.

Have to say though....Connor had his moments, even Sneyd had his moments. But Josh Reynolds....what's the point of him?

Albert Kelly did well for Brisbane this week and even on a bad day you are never going to not notice him like was the case with Reynolds.

Johnstone been underperforming last few times he has played. Don’t know if he’s trying too hard to take his chance?

Maybe give him more than six games.

Agree, for Fonuas first try, he really took the ball into the defensive line.

He cant be making 50 metre breaks to get us out of trouble every set

Reynolds has come across on his own, in the middle of a lockdown. Some overseas don’t find their feet until a good few months in.

Saints do the basics very well and at speed and they have the forwards to make an impact on any defence.
We are playing with small forwards who are been rolled over and Hodgson has to change the interchanges so we dont have Lane,Fash and Cator on at the same time.
Our bench has no impact at all so i would change the starting 13 and even though Bowden is not match fit i would start him with Sao and let big Chris who is our only real impact forward come off the bench for Bowden.
Hopefully Savelio is fit then we can interchange Lane and Cator
Dont know what to do with Johnstone.Can see the benefit of having two nines but i havnt seen anything from him yet to say he could be a long term replacement for Houghton.He is 23 now so in the age group of Cator and Lane but seems along way behind and is not blessed with any pace that a modern nine needs.
Its a pity that we are having to leave out a strong player like Faraimo unless we give him a run in the forwards

What’s the saying? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

We certainly need to try to change things as presently we are flogging dead horses. Danny H looks as though he’s lost interest again. Tuimavave not doing it for some time. Sneyd too light weight and soft in attack. Do you think Connor will resign with these poor performances?

If Brett H can do something you think he’d have done it by now but our old complacency can be seen again. Second half was marginally better but damage done.

Hey ho I live in hope and I’m a cancer patient!

We've not lost every game?

Carlos was poor tonight as were most of the team but to say he's "not been doing it for some time" is nonsense.

And yes, I think Connor will re-sign.

I think sometimes you ve just got to look at our squad and ask is it really good enough. I think we have a lot of overrated players on our books and the dynamics of the squad are unbalanced.

We need more players with game smarts as we have a lot who's game IQ leaves a lot to be desired.
We also need more size , speed and mobility in the pack as Fash, Bowden just don't get us out our half at all.

We're a work in progress and Hodgsons hands have been tied due to covid, il look forward when he can bring some players in. Squad needs work.

The manner was disapointing, hopefully see a reaction in the cup, chance to put it right

Hull made a similar amount of errors last week v Leeds. The difference is that Saints are a far better team than Leeds and punished Hull without mercy.
And if you make a similar number of mistakes next week, expect more of the same.

He would be stupid not too. He’s not a top tier player.hull is his level

Nah it is our tried and tested method, lose against the team we play the week before the cup match

We had two good performances at the start then its all gone back to the usual. 3 wins from the last 5 in the League, penalties galore every game, defensive line speed has been poor for many games but for me im seeing a steady decline in everything with our performances

Weve been the opposite of Hudds who started poorly but are now improving and building under Watson

I've said the same thing all the way through

Weve lost Kelly ratu and Ellis and replaced with just Reynolds

How is that stronger!?

I'm not sure why people were so optimistic

For me Reynolds is nowhere near Kelly was for us upto now

I agree with this to an extent.

We brought in one player, what was people seriously expecting ?

The squad is improving compared to the last two seasons but they was no way we were going to consistently be at the top. They is plenty of scope for improvements with plenty out of contract but I'm optimistic under BH still, he has managed to do what Radford didn't do in defence and it does take time for that mentality to stick in the squad.
I'd be happy if we broke the 4, that is a step in the right direction but to say things haven't changed is just being dramatic.

As for Reynolds I think we look good when we get decent field position and we could rarely say that with Kelly. He brings more players into the game but because he isn't doing the killer ball people are being oblivious to that fact. We've defended for 3 games practically so hard to judge the halves

I recently watched the CC final and Kelly was amazing
Almost unplayable
Reynolds isn’t that

I agree Carlos had a poor game tonight but Fonua was worse.His tries seem to have painted over his poor defence on the night.

But it's pathetic defending from Fonua, who tries to intercept but does nothing but leave the space for Welsby to score. He's been awful defensively tonight.
Comment from HFC DM reporter

Our first job needs to be to start completing some sets. We just aren't going to be in games when we are making so many basic errors. Respect possession, get to the kick, stay in the arm wrestle. I know its not exciting, but we need to get that right first. We also need to stop leaving hands in the ruck so much. Our wrestle was great early season, but slowly we have started to resort to illegal play to try to win the rucks and we need to tidy that up.

Defensively it was a bad night and I'm prepared to just write it off as such. When you've got usually reliable players like Tuimavave making poor defensive reads you know it's one of those nights.

We can point to our lack of creativity, but we aren't giving ourselves a chance. Keep the ball, play in better field position, then we give ourselves the opportunity to create. We can't do it from inside our own half which is where we've spent the last game and a half.

As I was saying in January..

I think you were condemned for being negative, weren't you?

Certainly people said the squad isn't weaker and the prop situation was fine. I think my assessment was reasonably accurate. Defence is better against the teams below us which is helping but against the top sides our pack is not dominant. I'm fine with that actually - we don't have the personnel and as a mid table side/club we are entitled to nothing, but can hope BH will bring in what's needed. He doesn't seem daft.

The key thing for me right now is errors and discipline. Impossible to compete with the top sides when you're constantly giving away territory and ball.

I think you are being unfair on Brown, he wasnt great, but only came on in the 2nd half when the game was on, doing about 20 minutes, I'd bet that when the stats come out they are better than Bowdens despite Bowden playing longer minutes