slighty ot, but have been really impressed with thompson, when we get all our forwards back does anyone see him as an option at centre? kid runs his weight is no slowcoach and looks to have good tackling skills, just a thought,

Personally, I'd go with Miller and Rankin in the halves with Horne and Arundel in the centres. To my mind, that's what we should be using Horne for now - to cover for injuries/poor form across the back line.

Quote ="Rock God X"I disagree. We've been hearing for years how well the squad or individual players have performed in training, only for them to come up short far too frequently on match days. Yeaman is one of the biggest culprits for me - he seems to be undroppable, no matter now poorly he performs. Radford has assured us that no one's place is safe unless they're performing well. If Yeaman retains his place, I think we can safely disregard that rhetoric and assume it's business as usual.'" He got dropped by Gentle last season www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Dropped- ... story.html

Quote ="Rock God X"I disagree. We've been hearing for years how well the squad or individual players have performed in training, only for them to come up short far too frequently on match days. Yeaman is one of the biggest culprits for me - he seems to be undroppable, no matter now poorly he performs. Radford has assured us that no one's place is safe unless they're performing well. If Yeaman retains his place, I think we can safely disregard that rhetoric and assume it's business as usual.'" He got dropped by Gentle last season www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Dropped- ... story.html

But is it right to reward Yeamo for his poor performance by keeping him in the team rather than give Crooks another chance?

Glad I'm not the coach!

Quote ="hullbg"He got dropped by Gentle last season www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Dropped- ... story.html'" For the first time in his career, according to the article. And wasn't he back in the game after? Either way, it's much rarer for him to be dropped than it is for him to suffer a period of poor or indifferent form.

Quote ="hullbg"He got dropped by Gentle last season www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Dropped- ... story.html'" For the first time in his career, according to the article. And wasn't he back in the game after? Either way, it's much rarer for him to be dropped than it is for him to suffer a period of poor or indifferent form.

Quote ="hullbg"He got dropped by Gentle last season www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Dropped- ... story.html'" Was thinking of that earlier actually but mostly about the rumours that were around afterwards of how the players responded to that dropping.

Quote ="hullbg"He got dropped by Gentle last season www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Dropped- ... story.html'" Was thinking of that earlier actually but mostly about the rumours that were around afterwards of how the players responded to that dropping.

It depends how you view Yeamans past performances. He's a player, along with a few others, who people love to criticise.
Defensively he's been good and that's what we need at the moment.
Last weeks performance couldn't have been much worse, attacking wise, but it certainly wasn't the norm.
I guess if you dropped him you would never pick him again.

Agree. No player should be exempt from a trip to Doncaster to play for a week.

Whilst of course we also need defensive stability, the big fat zero on the scoreboard on Sunday (as well as the overall performance) suggests that our attack is currently the more pressing need.

Before the Widnes game, our attack was much improved, our defence somewhat disappointing.
So do you now suggest we should focus on attack?

We had enough clear cut opportunities to score 20+ points, so I don't think we need to worry too much at this stage.
Last season those chances simply weren't being created often enough.

I think that now we're a few games into the season, hindsight shows that we racked up 2 good scores against 2 of the 3 worst defences in the league. Apart from that, only a last minute consolation try has taken us above 16 points in any of the other 4 games. Our defence is about on par with our position in the table (actually the 8th best, and we've played 2 of the 3 best attacking sides so far).

So yes, I do think our attack is currently more of a problem than our defence (yet again).

It's all well and good creating opportunities but we need to put points on the board in those situations. It's not the first game this season we've bombed opportunities in games that we could have won either. There were certainly missed opportunities against Warrington and Cas which could have given us quite a different result.

I'm not disputing that we aren't converting opportunities into points, but the attacking structures have improved to create these chances.
Without chances there would be no points at all, ever.

Well he's certainly making some changes because there are one or two pretty upset players around this afternoon according o Jams Smailes!

www.hullfc.com/article/33640/big ... nst-devils Miller set to play.

www.hullfc.com/article/33640/big ... nst-devils Miller set to play.

That's not hard to work out
17 from 19

...or 2 from 19 (or maybe 2+4) from 19

Fair play to Lee Radford I say, he has made some mistakes I agree but a message had to be sent out to the squad this week that last week was not acceptable. If dropping a few players and maybe sacrificing one game means we will gain a switched on squad for the rest of the season then I am all for it. Miller should be given the next 2/3 games to be shown what he can do, one game isn't going to reflect it IMO.

My other fear is that we will have another nightmare game and we start digging deeper rather then going up.

Time will only tell I guess.

I agree that they've improved but for me we still need to focus more on those attacking structures rather than improving our defence so that we get those points. We've been in some tight games so far this season that we've narrowly lost and for me it's been more about our missed opportunities whilst attacking than our defence letting us down.

It's chicken and egg, really though. Without the ability to convert chances there wouldn't be any points either. We've essentially changed a lack of chances problem for a poor execution one, with the same end result. Execution to convert is just as important a part of attack as the creation of chances.

But one further step down the line towards success



In all seriousness we really should have beaten Widnes easily with the number of clear chances created. That is full square down to individuals not performing the basics of their job. The thing I was most disappointed about against Widnes wasn't the execution but the lack of energy in our game in the second half. I want to see far more energy and urgency from every player especially if we are trailing at home.

Fair play to Radders if he drops players - he's said he will do so and doesn't appear to me like a guy who would say things he had no intention of doing.

Agreed. There was a noticeable difference between 3 or 4 players clearly trying to make things happen and getting frustrated with their teammates and the majority who just seemed to drop their heads and resign themselves to defeat.

He's shown already with Crooks and Rankin that he'll drop players so I think he will do that. The question is will he drop some of our more senior players if they warrant it. Time will tell on that front.

forecast for tomorrow, quite a bit of early rain but fading away as the day goes on, so conditions should be hell of a lot better than last week

Good to see Miller getting his chance, really hope he goes well and that the crowd gets behind him.

I'd like to see him partnering Rankin. Horne in the centre is an interesting option.