Cardiff_05 wrote:
On the whole, it was fantastic to see us play for the whole game (a small spell in the first half aside) and not let our advantage diminish in the second half. Connor and Fonua (my MOTM) were excellent and are showing real signs of an outstanding partnership. Sneyd was immense again and pretty much played in a tuxedo the whole night. His goal kicking, and sorry to sound like a stuck record, but it's worth so many points on the table throughout the whole season - he's the most important player we've signed in the past few years in terms of what he offers to the gameplan.
To be top at this stage of the season, with injury issues, discipline issues, problems with playing 80 minutes, big defeats (especially at home) and not exactly firing on all cylinders is a real credit to the club, especially considering that in recent weeks we have seen youngsters in Fash, Litten, Downs, Turgut, Matongo all get really good game time.
The squad, as a direct consequence of these youngsters getting valuable game time and experience, plus the likes of Houghton, Ellis, Talanoa, Bowden and Watts (albeit for discipline reasons) having a bit of enforced rest, will be all the better for it and maybe we will be able to make this count as we reach the summer and autumn months, and go that one step further in the Super 8s.
Though to a degree some of the forced rests are for discipline it looks like the penny has well and truly dropped for LR. He still couldn't see last season that he needed to bring in the younger squad members mid and latter part of the season even despite the Warrington Easter win. Pressure to keep winning, win some silverware and using your senior players (who stayed uninjured) plus inexperience on his part meant that didn't happen, that he chucked loads of 'kids' in pre-season was an indicator that the penny had dropped.
hull always produce forwards, we've never been short of home grown talent in that dept, it's generally in the backs to a degree where we've lacked home-grown at times, there's only Shaul at FB out of 7, most definiely our ability to produce quality half-backs regularly has being a problem for many, many years.
Tommy Lee could have been, IF Cooke had stayed we'd have been in a better position because we were trying to fill his shoes for best part of a decade with imports in the search for success and thus youngsters don't get games to prove themselves or are discarded/leave because they simply won't get a chance other than to cover injury when all the square pegs have run out. It's a circular and indeed cyclical problem.
it's going to take some more years now I feel for the academy to produce backs that will get a chance, we've lost plenty recently so not sure where the next lad is going to come from that will get given a shot. Logan did but was dropped in favour of yeaman, we lost Crooks and Lineham and Lancaster has also gone by the way-side with Dean & Tyson Wilson, possibly could lose JA too which I think would be a mistake not to keep him and use him as a 13
However the young forwards in Fash, Matongo, Litten, Turgut and others can start to cement 1st XVII places, a forward line including rotations of Hadley, Green, Bowden, Watts, Taylor, Fash, Litten, Turgut, Downs, Matongo and possibly JA would be phenominal in terms of hull grown players.
