How many games do you think it will take us to lose before Agar goes??

I for one would be prepared to put up with it..things simply have to change

Reckon a couple of years

I would imagine 8-12 games in and only 3/4 wins then he could be in trouble. That said the board seem to be backing him.

Well for me I would rather lose 8 to 12 and get rid of Agar.

He simply has to go for this team to progress!!

Don't disagree. That said I would like him to see the season out either way so we can think long and hard about who we want next rather than rushing into an appointment.

It was your first game! You were one game off finishing 4th last season and that was without half backs for most of the year! He has brought players such as Fitzgibbon and O'Meley in who are possibly the best players you've had at the club since Smith and Best. Berrigan stuffed up your pre-season and Tansey really threw spanners in the works. With those two and the other players being able to play in their correct positions you'd have probably not let a 14pt lead go.

With Phelps you have a brilliant full back or utility back who will bring plenty of pace and smart thinking to your back line. That is probably what is missing in your backs, a bit of brains. Lynne, Turner, Briscoe are all very young, Whiting is solid in everything he does but he's not an inventive type player while Yeaman does what he does and does it well however he's very much an indevidual. With Phelps I think you'll get the best out of your youngsters because he'll bring them in to the game more and they'll learn a heck of a lot.

Remember also you only started to lose the game because you had to take O'Meley off the pitch, his runs troubled us, Fitzgibbon was being asked to do too much in defence after that which made him less effective later on in the game.

Agar might not be a great coach but after what you guys should have seen as a successful season last year to want him out after only one game at the start of the season is pretty poor. Maybe it is because you share a football stadium you are getting a football esqué mindset of how to deal with losing games!!!

You'll all be full of joy and laughter if you go out and beat Leeds. Get your defence right and Longy will produce the points. Turner at centre will be more solid too as he is a big unit to run at.

I was glad of the win yesterday and had no doubts going in to it even at 14-0 down I thought we had a win in us but had that been the case in 8 weeks time I'd have been wanting to see the 80th minute very quickly indeed!!!

All good points. The Agar frenzy has been happening for a while now and even if we won our next 5 games people would still complain, they just don't like him.

He could make things easier on himself though, he could play Fitz at prop and spell him so he and O'Meeley did opposite spells. He could play Westerman at 13, little things like that would at least mean he was picking what fans would say is a better looking side. That said fans wanted Briscoe at centre for a while and he did not do much there yesterday.

We will be better with Phelps at FB and Whiting in the centres but I fear his lack of thought about how to fit Westy will leave fans complaining even more.

All this about people not liking Agar is a load of tosh. As a person i have no feelings of like or dislike towards him. As a coach and what his coaching is doing to Hull FC i think he is the anti-christ and wish him banished to the national leagues to be never seen again. If a national league club would take him of course and there probably wouldnt be many who would.

Nick HKR you make some good points in your post..

Can I ask.. Would you have him over Morgan as a coach??

How many games? I honestly think you are looking at 10 at least. This board will back him to the hilt, even tho the hole is getting deeper and deeper!

I'm not convinced he'll go no matter how bad results are. Our squad is so thin and add in the players we've lost then he'll have a ready made excuse unless we have miraculous luck with injuries.

I also suspect that the board won't want to have no coach in place during such an important recruitment year.

Like it or not, I don't think he's going anywhere

Problem with Monday morning fans is that you have hindsight to go on. If Fitz was to go at prop who do you drop? Radders seems to do well now he is at prop, Lauaki and Moa both didn't do bad once they got on the field they just were not O'Meley!

Westerman I agree should be at loose man, his skills are too great for second row. He does still have to get used to the players around him, he's been at Cas for a long time since leaving you guys so he needs time just like Sharp and Phelps do.

Also by moving Fitz to prop you lose a lot of skill from this great player, what I'd do is play him in the second row as a Ben Galea type player who can use his skills but not taking the place of someone that may well be the future for you.

Briscoe I think has become an established (yet still raw) winger at this level and he'll need a few more years of service there to make a very good centre at the standard a play off chasing team need. You do not get many top 6 sides with a wet behind the ears centre.

I see where your fans come from with this Agar thing but surely he's taken you forward since he took over in pretty difficult conditions and has had some terrible luck with injuries to contend with so I think he did more than enough to ease your fears last season when you were very unlucky not to be in the top 4, with half backs for more than 20 rounds and you may have troubled the top 3.

I'd be saying the same if he were in charge of rovers.

If morgan left rovers, would you be happy with agar as a replacement?

So Nick ..... Agar or Morgan??

Why would he want to lose Morgan when they are doing ok?

First time two Hull fans have said I make good points in a post!!!!!

Obviously I rate Morgan higher than Agar, I think Agar would make a good number 2 as he did previously. To me looking in from outside your club James Rule and Kath Hetherington seem to throw money at players they 'think' to be worth more than the market value which means you have to make do with players of substandard quality to fill the rest of the positions. I do not honestly believe Agar has much choice over the squad he is allowed to pick from. As great as O'Meley, Fitzgibbon and Long are they are taking up what I would imagine to be at least 500k of a 1.65m salary cap. That is a heck of a lot of money to then need another 22 players for around 1m, put in to that around 200k of Berrigans wage if not more then you start to see half of you cap on four or five players. Look then at what local players are getting I again think they are maybe taking more than they are possibly worth and better players could be found for the same amount. (I am guessing at wages and could be a million miles - or pounds - off from the truth).

I actually think a lot of clubs would rather Morgan as their coach but then that is why I expect him to be working in Australia for one of these new clubs very soon!!!

Rovers were more disciplined and respectful of possession. That's why they won. That's what wins every one of our derbies.

But the ill-discipline and lack of respect of posession has been a big feature of Agars team since day one so how do you explain that?

I seem to remember us winning the fair play trophy in 2009. If we've been ill disciplined during all of Agars reign, how do you explain that?

think you have just about hit the nail on the head there.

Some good points Nick but in defence of some Hull fans on here its not a short term knee jerk reaction is it, Perhaps Agar should not go now but the clock should be ticking, what is worrying folks is that despite an off season when several clubs have obviously improved and moved a step up it appears that we have stood still, we still have the same failing but now include some really sloppy defence as well, we all agreed way back (as the club did) where the main problem is, but we have just not made any progress at all in recruiting half back cover and now we are panicking!

Agreed. Agar has been promoted beyond his ability IMO.


Don't agree with this at all. Up until a season or so ago we had the cap spread too evenly and so had a team filled with journeymen. A deliberate policy was then implemented to mimic the pay structures of the more successful sides where a small number of quality players take up a larger proportion of cap space and the rest of the squad comprises good players on lower wages. We're still part way through that restructuring as existing contracts could not be revised, so we may well have a few players on higher wages than they justify, but this is not at the root of our problems. And neither is Agar's ability to recruit and play who he wants - indeed he probably has more freedom in this area than any recent Hull coach.

We have two issues:

1. The squad rebuilding needed after years of poor recruitment and retention isn't complete yet, leaving us with an unbalanced squad.
2. Agar has too many flaws in his coaching to get the team playing to it's full potential - or even a reasonable level of consistency.

It really is that simple.

Got to say Sam Obst is a cracking player who could well be what you are missing. When James Webster came to Rovers all them years ago I was told we had a choice of Obst or Webbo and we chose Webster. For Rovers at that time the choice was the correct one and he not only got us back in the big time but also coached us for a successful period. Obst however killed us everytime we played against him, his Whitehaven days were very good earning him a SL contract, he has limited experience of playing among world class players such as those I mentioned on high wages but as long as he doesnt stand around star struck he could be the one that really pushes you back in the mix.

Any Hull fans wanting a long shot get to bookies and have him as Hulls to try scorer. Sure Briscoe and Sharpe will score plenty as will Yeaman but Obst really has a nack of getting over the line when there really is nothing else on!

FWIW I do think Rule and Hetherington have Hulls best interests at heart and they clearly see Agars coaching ability on a daily basis which is why you should really give him the benefit of the doubt. He has had to rebuild a side that was aging and failing, he took over in difficult circumstances, has put up with so many injuries it's unbelievable and now he's got ill disciplined players to sack, top players walking out and still the fans offer him no sympathy! At the very least give him half a season to prove what his squad can do and not 80 minutes in a slippery cut up pitch on the first day of the season when players fitness's are not upto what they will be in rounds 3 and 4. As the OP states it is short term pain for a long term goal, well your pain might well be over with Obst and Phelps coming to your rescue.

By the way you're only 4 over seas players short of ours now, maybe by half way you'll have a couple more!!!!!!!!

didnt he sign long and fitz...and re-signed radders


jog on mate..

I've held back from commenting so far but I am getting a bit fed up of reading the Anti Agar stuff now so thought as an outsider I would make a comment.

The three best sides in the UK play with a very disciplined set of forwards who lay a platform for 4 or 5 strike players who are generally on the field at the same time.

If Hull had Tansey at Full back, Horne and Long at 6 and 7, Westerman at 13 and to give the argument more standing Houghton at 9 (I appreciate he is a forward technically) they would have one of the top 4 or 5 offensive line ups in the League.

That is why I believe Phil Clarke tipped them as dark horses for the comp.

Yesterday two major things went wrong for me.

After 15 mins the forwards lost their discipline, giving Rovers piggy backs up the field and heaping pressure on an already fragile fringe defence.

The second thing is that Whiting is not the player in attack Tansey is and Turner is a poor mans Richard Horne meaning that once Rovers had got a strangle hold on the possession Hull were relying on Long to tip the balance back for them.

If you can point the finger at Agar for anything I think he should of played Westerman for much longer giving and Turner some options.

For me FC will improve as the season goes on when they have Phelps at full back, Horne at 6, Long at 7 and Westerman at 13 with the influence of James Webster they are going to be a real threat.

Lets remember they scored 22 points yesterday without really playing for more than 15 minutes.

Rich Agar will get it right, the fans need to look at the first quarter of an hour yesterday and hope that by the end of the year your playing that stuff for 70-80 mins.