I too was impressed with the majority of the side but I still retain many worries defensively and I'm sure Powell has got a few more grey hairs on his head watching that yesterday too. On that basis, I'm getting the negatives out first.
Firstly, our man on man tackling one on one was shocking. Holmes had one of his poorest games in a while (and I'm not just focusing on the Westerman break after a few mins). Thompson also seemed off his game and there were a few occasions from other players where one on one we sloppily allowed them metres.
Secondly, we give our opposition far too much respect with ball in hand. We know how dangerous Lineham is as a runner so we gave him space to make 10/15 metres or attack our line. Don't watch, just smash him!
On this point, we still seem very lethargic when moving up to meet our opposition; we need to stop moving up and stopping after a few metres. Move up and meet our opposition as a unit, put pressure on them and force them to play more flatter. Don't give them time to pick and choose moves and attack at speed.
Now moving on to the positives...
I thought Huby had arguably his best season this season in the forwards and led by example as the most experienced (in terms of time spent at Cas) member of the squad. Like Chase, I thought he was outstanding.
Walker was excellent and made a real impact when he was on the field and his determination for the try was great. Hull can moan about poor defence but they had hold of him and still managed to get out of that and swat aside two or three others (some of which looked near his head) to plant the ball over.
In the backs, I thought Chase and Tansey's kicking game proved to be much more dangerous than Chase and Ellis.
Clare disproved so many of his doubters and similarly Owen had a reasonable game on the opposite wing.
What is particularly pleasing is that we had 2/3 members of the team crocked in that game and still managed to battle to keep Hull out.
It is quite amusing reading the Hull forum, who seemingly want to focus on giving their team a bashing for losing to someone like Cas (no respect again) but giving us no credit for the victory. It wasn't Cas played well and outplayed us, it seems like more a case of we outplayed ourselves.
Given the penalty count in their favour and errors against Cas (knock on for one of their tries, Lineham's swinging arm on Clare) Cas rose to the occasion and won on sheer fortitude and courage.
Hull's attacking threat was much more and some may say the goal was lost on goal-kicks; it was. But again credit has to be given to Cas for forcing Hull out wide to score their tries and not allowing them to get near the sticks on every occasion.
I really revel in socking it to one of these sides who profess to be a big team. I generally like Hull as a side and have no animosity to their fans but it really is delicious when a few see us as a poor side, even though our results this season in the main show that we've been desperately unlucky (i.e. Wigan at home, Catalan at home) where we could have had more points on the board and contending for a play-off position.
