These type of players are a luxury, but if it's what's needed then Kelly is right up there.
I was just making the point that he does things so off the cuff he is difficult to put into a game plan or train for.
You will need an on field leader if Ellis isn't available and only have 13 starting spots.

Agree regarding the referee,if he had given the try to inu which was clearly a try,hull would have been 10-2 down,instead they went down the other end and scored.Very poor game and disappointing by you,I expected a hull win,goodness knows what you'll do if houghton gets crocked,minichello is a top player but had a shocker,all in all a big letdown for the big crowd.

I thought our defence and effort was superb...

But.... the 'achilles heel' problem still remains, passing is laborious, and inaccurate..

One example last night, was Danny Houghton scooted laterally, but there were no options
for him to pass to... We never put Catalans defence under pressure,on their try line.
Maybe Lee Radford needs to bring in, an attack coach , to improve our passing and bring
some structure to our attack..
I thought Manu was outstanding, Tuimavave played well, but I feel Fonua (our best attacking threat -IMO) is wasted on the wing..

On reflection last night was a massive missed opportunity and as long as we learn from the mistakes last night then we will be ok.

For me as bad as we were which wasn't helped by Hicks & Catalans game plan of disrupting any flow in the game we should still have won had we controlled our discipline as giving 10pts away in front on the sticks is just not acceptable!!

Defensively we were very good, our cover defence and defence on the line was great the only blot was the unusual missed tackle by Danny Houghton that let Bird through to set up the Catalan try.

Thought the forwards put in the meters and took the ball up well but for me we just lost any sort of leadership and calming influence on the field. Typical example was after scoring the try instead of seeing out the set and calming it down Connor attempted a 40/20.
Our discipline went out the window through frustration of Catalans niggling/slowing us down tactics and Hicks awful attempt to control the game. The call by Hicks when he clearly shouted held and Catalan still continued to push Bowden in to touch was a typical example and compunded the frustration in the players who seemed to feel aggrieved nothing was given regarding the shot by Moa on Ellis.

Think the criticism of Josh griffin is harsh as didnt do too much wrong for me but Talanoa was far too often poor postionally leaving Griffin isolated particularly as his timing was out and was more often than not in front of the line leaving Griffin with little or no options.

All in all it was a bad day at the office so to speak but personally not too disappointed in the performance so to speak more the way we allowed Catalan to bully and dominate us and let the frustrations of an awful game boil over in to very poor discipline in key areas and in terms of our play regarding poor patience/rushing plays & poor distribution which ultimately handed the game to Catalan.

As long as Radford ensures they learn from last night then we will still be up there.

Agree with the highlighted bit and think this is going to be a conumdrum all season with regards Fonua/Carlos/Micheals. Do think after seeing Fonua devastate defences last season in the centre role he is wasted on the wing as we lose a lot of what he adds when at playing centre.

If your plan A isn't working something you need off the cuff rugby to get you going again, agree we do miss leadership on the pitch when Ellis is off hopefully Houghton or Taylor will take that over at some point.

One of those nights.
A team came with a game plan, and aided by a poor referee, it was successful for them. Rubbish to watch though. Just not smart enough to find a solution to the constant niggling/slowing down at the ruck.
Proved how important Ellis is to us, and doubts still remain over a couple of players.
Glad it's over (Catalan never seem to deviate from spoiling tactics), and we move on.

Watched the match again this morn and its surprising how the match seems different on telly. Firstly IMO cats deserved the win. There had better control and played a lot of the match in our half. Taylor really wants to have a look how he rushes in for the big tackles a lot come across as shoulder charges. Conner IMO just tried to hard. Forwards on the whole did fine but thought mini had a very average game. Sneyd was very quite and thought the bench lacked that spark and Bowden was the best IMO. Maybe time to give turgut or masi a run ? All in all early days and although disappointing not the end of the world. Kelly will defo help our cause and hope Ellis is OK.

No complaints about the result. We tried hard but lacked direction in attack and played some dumb rugby. Too many of our big name players had an off day. We badly missed Ellis and Kelly. Cats had a good game plan and executed it well, aided and abetted by Hicks, but poor as he was, he didn't lose us the the match, we did that ourselves. Very disappointing but there's a lot of rugby left yet. Hoping for a better show against Huddersfield. COYH.