I think he could start a do a very good job, but couldn't last the 80 minutes there.

Needs to be a big improvment from Berrigan at hooker.

Pointless I think. Next year we have Berrigan and Houghton will need plenty of gametime too. Signing a hooker next season would not make sense. When Berro leave we can use his salary to sign a quality hooker with Houghton still off the bench.

It's not pointless if we have a hooker who isnt performing there, are you ahppy to have Berrigan at hooker next season with his form over the last year.

I'm not. I'd rather let Washy have a go and use Berro in the centres if he is under contract.

same here...did we not discuss this last week, wonder where that poster has gone who said you posted tripe

Maybe it's worth a try but everytime I have seen Washbrook play hooker he looks too slow, a bit like Murrell is at Rovers, he is not a natrual hooker.

You could probably go back 12-18 months and find me saying i'd rather use Tommy Lee at 9 and Berro in the centres.

Maybe so, i'm hoping more than anything i guess that we can find a regular place in the 13 for Washy and i think he could develop into a Cunningham type of 9. Would need to work on it but he does have very good hands, could he be worse than Berro from a distribution perspective?

Right here.



This is absolutely insane. He maybe throws one poor pass in a hundred and suddenly it wouldn't be possible to pass any worse?! Madness.

(And that's without mentioning the 'Washbrook could become like Cunningham' crap.)

It's yet another forum myth that has suddenly become fact. His distribution is generally good.

Washbrook aint fat enough to be a "cunningham"

There is an awful lot of received opinion on here. A pity it's generally received from such poor sources.

You've really got to take those Berrigan coloured specs off!!
The problem with the whole Berrigan thing is that in the time he's been here he just hasn't showed the form he once showed in Oz and he hasn't been able to lead us to , help us to or be part of any success because we haven't had any. You say he wasn't a leader in Oz , probably not but that's not the point , we signed him as a player to make a difference to this club and shelled out a huge amount of money. The club's fault? Possibly , he's a name grab him? Him/the Club Unlucky , probably. Him not giving a toss, don't know but lots of times that's what his body language and performance suggests. He can't use the excuse that many of our players can - simply not good enough - because we know he is and see it every now and then. BUT he's signed for another year at great cost , money which could have been used improve our desperate three quarter line. We have another year of potentially what we've had and can't go get another hooker even though we know he'll probably be ready for home at the end of his extension. Like I said before he owes us bigtime , I'd love to think that he's ready to repay but I'm not holding my breath. Sometimes in life for wahtever reason things don't work out and never do and Berrigan seems to me to be just one of those things. Hope I'm wrong but on recent past and current form the extra year is nothing to celebrate.

Long was the Hull Daily Mail Man of the Match



TBF it was a tough choice. No sign of the 1-2-3 thread this week.

He may have been fat but a half fit Cunningham was ten times a fit Washbrook...

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Don't give a sh[size=100i[/sizet who plays where as long as it's the best option for the team, which Berrigan at hooker is.



Yes, he has. The real problem is that most people don't have a clue what it was he offered to his previous teams and are expecting something different. What it is they're expecting, I don't know. My fairly straightforward questions in the other thread remain unanswered, but it appears that people were expecting him to 'have an impact' (whatever that means). Presumably, that means improve on what we had before and what we had before was Richard Swain. To expect an improvement on him is ridiculous.



Yes, it is. Signing a player who isn't a leader and expecting him to be a leader is utterly stupid. I'm not saying the club expected him to be a leader (I'd hope their scouting is good enough that they'd know what they were getting), but a lot of fans did. I've no idea why, but the error is purely theirs.



We signed him to attempt to fill the hole left by one of the best hookers to have played the game. He's done a pretty good job so far, better than the vast, vast majority of other options would have done.



He really doesn't. He got POTY in his first season, despite being messed about playing in virtually every spot we could find. He was treated not too differently last year, and again was comfortably one of our best players. This year, we've seen a huge change in the way the PTB is policed and the only hooker to be having any success out of dummy half really is Lunt, and that comes off the back of the good work Huddersfield put in on the ground. When Berrigan does get chance to jump out, he consistently looks dangerous (even on Saturday, he was our biggest threat on the two occasions we actually found a quick play) and his service from dummy half, whilst not exemplary like Swain's, is very good generally. Defensively, he's very strong and we usually suffer massively in that area when he goes off.

You're right he is the best option there for us, but he's been distinctly average for us there and is one of the main factors for us when playing good or bad. We've been woeful for over 2 years and i'm not accepting that it's all down to a poor pack and not having a 7. Berro must take some accountability too for giving us very little in attack.

He is certainly no Roby etc thats for sure!!

In what way has he been average? What hasn't he done that you want him to do? What hasn't he done that the unanimously lauded Richard Swain did? Specifically I mean, not vague, vacuous stuff like 'he's not had enough impact' or 'lead'.

Purely on Saturday my criticism was that he never really dominated around the ruck. He did not run the ball much and the frustrating thing is when he did he looked good and at times his distribution was poor.

He looked much more of a threat when he moved into the halves with ball in hand.

On Saturday he looked anything but an International/SOO player. Although overall for the season I feel he has been playing well. His two poorest performances were Crusaders and Salford.

Do we have to get into this debate again?



(ive never compared Berro to Swain and aren't going to start now)

Ok, just as i'm bored here what i dont think Berro does enough of:
- speed of ptb distribution is slow, he picks up and looks rather than firing passes
- taking the line on. He does this probably once or twice per game. I want to see him do this more as he has a real gift to break the line and also pick the right pass.
- play a larger role in what's good attacking wise at Hull FC. We've blamed having no scrum half for a number of years now and i'd like to see us play off the 9 a bit more than rely on the 7. Berro needs to do this.
- statistically he is on a par with Ryan Hudson. I know stats are what you make of them but this in itself is a statement that says he must do better. He's a former Oz international on big bucks and should be performing like a senior member of the squad.

I know I'm repeating myself, but this is purely down to the quality of PTB. If it's good enough, he goes. Just about every time. It's something he's very good at and is something he's done well throughout his career at hooker and it's been no different here, except that the quality he's had to work off has, unsurprisingly, been much poorer than at Brisbane, for Queensland or for Australia.



When you say 'at times' I assume you're talking about the two poor passes he gave. That's just something that happens with nearly all hookers. When you're making 200+ passes a game, some will occasionally go wrong.



Because he got the ball with a bit of space and room to run into. I don't think he really did play any better at 6, but he looked more of a threat because he had more of a chance to run with the ball.

All fair points. I think because he is such a good player that when we are playing badly you want one of your star players to produce something special and Berrigan comes in that bracket.

We don't have to, but I am genuinely interested as to why people have such a low opinion of Berrigan's performances here because I just don't see it.



I think everyone who's followed the club over the last few years has and does, consciously or otherwise. It's only natural to compare a player with his direct predecessor.

The reason I keep bringing Swain into it is because he was praised by all, almost every week. He's (rightly) regarded as one of our best players, certainly in the modern era, and yet I don't think he was massively better for us than Berrigan has been. And I'd like to know what differences it is that people see between the two.



Not all the time. Usually only when he's trying to draw in the markers and pop a short ball to an oncoming runner. When he needs to get quick service to the halves, he does.



As I mentioned in my previous post, this is entirely dependant on the play he has to work off. He's not like Houghton in that he's not got the same acceleration off the mark, so he picks his time to go much more carefully. Houghton goes far too often, and rarely looks for anything other than just getting his head down and running straight back behind the ruck. Berrigan looks to go when the line is genuinely not set and there is a real chance of a break.



I'm not sure how you want him to do this. Again, without a quick play and a chance to scoot, there's not a lot he can do apart from move the ball out to runners or the halves.