It looks like our run of defeats is helping the dobbins fans take their minds off the dismantling of their team...

Thanks, it's very much appreciated. Maybe you should dismantle yours, saying that you'd have to play as a team first not an over hyped bunch of individuals

On the bright side, last night made our performance against Cas look half decent.

He who laughs last .......you know how the rest goes

I'll start worrying when we have a club record defeat to contend with.
Thing is, most hull fans know how poor we've been so your gloating is misplaced.
Long term, id rather support a club that is investing heavily on youth structures and facilities, and adding to the squad rather than annually lose their best players.

10,400 on the Sky caption. Not surprising at all - poor form, tv game and another game in six days time would all contribute.

I don't think Johnson was better than Lynch and IMO Lynch seems to copping at least some flak for other players failings. Sure he dropped the ball when he shouldn't have done (although I really wish he'd have been at the tap restart near the end and not McDonnell as I'd have fancied him to have taken that pass) and it was poor handling although some credit to the tackler is due. He should have retained possession but I found it refreshing to see a rare line break from a Hull prop in the first place. You're right in your assessment that he is carrying some workload from others and as a result I'd be more than surprised if his stats were not way ahead of any other Hull prop last night. Johnson is one brave player whose effort cannot be questioned but frankly isn't top level - not big enough to break through the line and is regularly mullered in contact if his initial footwork isn't effective. If only we could put Johnson's heart into Watts' body as Watts for me is incapable of concentrating for more than a set and his pathetic positioning and defence in the middle for their break late on was nowhere near SL standard. Watts' failings are far more to do with a lack of intensity and desire than the bit of weight he's lost and that can be said for a couple of others in the past three or four weeks.

Really, one defeat would worry you more than a run of average half d performances, strange. I'd take one club record defeat followed by learning from it, improving and kicking on seems that concept is alien to your coach. still theres always next year.

If by losing our best players annually you mean someone who thought he was worth more than he is like Mcdonnell, someone who'd rather be in the pub like Watts and a player who should have retired like Galea then keep investing. Bottom line is how long before the likes of Crooks and Lineham realise they are too good to be wallowing in a mid table club and sign for a big club.

No - I think he means Paea, Dobson and Paterson doesn't he ?

Don't know we haven't lost them annually. So I went for the ones we lost last year. All replaced and can't say any of them where missed. Add to that Green and Taylor and I'd say recruitment was more than adequate to see them replaced.

I have full confidence we'll do the same with the 3 you mentioned. Dobson may be the difficult one but the other two will be relatively easy.

You seem to forget briscoe,turner,manu all left/or are leaving your shower,I suppose you have the consolation of huge transfer fees paid for them.

Well I would say that's who he meant regardless of your silly little play on it. Glad you're confident that you can source replacements it's a great position to be in. Top 4 place beckoning for you next season and at least one major final I should imagine. Nothing to do with Hull FC though so I'll leave it there.

At least Paul The Red had some ability and didn't laugh at his own 'jokes'.

This I think is symptomatic of the club atm.
Why are Wakefield a lesser team? They're certainly playing better and with more enthusiasm than us currently.
There was a woman behind me last night spitting feathers about how we'd lost to Cas and now Wakefield like we've got some right to beat these teams all the time.

We haven't got the right to be beating them but if we want to be heading in the direction our owner stated when taking over then we are going to have to start performing better against the likes of Wakey, Cas, Widnes, London, teams who won't be making the play-offs.

I quite agree.
My point is there seems to be an expectation that we can just turn up and win rather than having to actually play well to do it.
I do think the gap has narrowed a lot and there isn't all that much to choose between the teams from about 5th-6th downwards (I count us in that group) and if you don't turn up and give it your all you're going to get turned over.

Who says we won't make the play offs - it's that kind of arrogance and dismisiveness that causes Hulls problems in the first place.

If I were a betting man I'd back us ahead of you at the moment

Don't know concentrating on this year first, you ought to try it sometime

Yep and the lesser teams in the division know we have a soft centre and if they come and stick it to us then they have every chance of getting a result.

I think the expectation is that, if both teams play to somewhere near their full potential, we should win the game. When we turn out crap like we have the last few weeks and lose, a certain amount of frustration is inevitable.

Nobody has the right to beat anybody, it has to be earned but we are a far bigger club than most in SL. Losing to teams that will struggle to even make the playoffs should be seen as a shock and rightly criticised especially when they didnt even have to do anything special to achieve it.

Well we are currently 3 points ahead of you so I would hope we'll be capable of maintaining that.
Don't get me wrong though, unless we get a confidence injection from somewhere it could turn out to be a close call.

Regarding Gentle, where are these excuses he's apparently giving? I haven't heard one. When the paper asks for an interview, and we're in form, what is he supposed to say?? I think the whole "working hard in training to ratify the problem" is the only thing he can say.

I agree that Johnson isn't top level, whereas Lynch is (or can be), but I did think that he was better than Lynch last night. I don't think there was a great deal in it as I don't think that any of the props played well all round, I mainly disagreed with you about O'Meley and Lynch being head and shoulders above the rest. I thought Lynch was possibly the slowest of a pathetic set of ptbs. And I didn't think it was just about fatigue last night, either, as it wasn't like last week where he started well and faded, he was fairly constant IMO.

With the knock on, I will give credit for the break, and to the tackler, but as I said the worst thing about it to me was that Lynch looked right at the tackler and thrust straight at him with his ball carrying, only for the ball to pop straight out. If you're going to use your ball carrying arm to absorb the impact you need to make sure you wrap the ball up. For that, in it's own way it was almost as stupid as Westerman's 'offload' against Cas.

With Watts I think his defensive failings are about attitude, but the deterioration in his attacking threat is his weight. He's not having enough impact in the collision to either break tackles or get an offload away. Needs to fix both.

Fair point but it's the procession of comments from both Gentle and the players in the media that claim that all of the deficiencies are being tackled and 'worked on in training' that are wearing very thin as time and again we see the same deficiencies appear on matchday. I agree he's limited in what he can say but I think a ban on all players talking to the media until the end of the season and a bit of a siege mentality woudn't go amiss. That would require a close knit approach from the squad of players and despite being told to the contrary we don't look a particularly close bunch to me. As was pointed out by someone else the reaction to the McDonnell spear tackle was pathetic from our lot IMO.