fixem wrote:One thing which has not been mentioned on the forum about last night's game is the kicking by both sides. In this aspect Hull were clearly second best. Gale was able to direct his up and unders high and accurate. Apart from Talanoa's unfortunate lapse Hull defended this bombardment well. Invariably, however, the player defending the kick, usually Shaul, was dumped to the ground where he caught the ball, immediately putting the team under pressure and on the backfoot. Hull's up and unders, on the other hand, were not so well directed or accurate. The team was not able to get up quick enough to attack the defending player, who was mostly able to return the ball 10 metres or so before being tackled.
This is one of the benefits to cas with the shorter pitch. they are invariably kicking in the opposition half on the last tackle so can put in high bombs and be on the defender quickly. With a full sized pitch they just don't have that luxury and players like talanoa and fonua will have plenty of time to field the ball and get some momentum before the defence get to them
fixem wrote:In recent games Connor has been putting in the up and unders with no little skill. The Hull attackers were able to get up on the defender and put him under pressure. Why did Connor not do some of the kicking last night?
The same problem when attacking the line. Gales kicks were varied, accurate and mostly along the ground. Again Hull did well to defend these, but you always felt that they were under pressure and a try would come at any moment. Hull's kicking strategy on the sixth tackle was woeful. I cannot remember one occasion when Cas appeared to be pressurised from the type of kicks to which Gale was subjecting Hull.
The kicking was a lot better in the 2nd half and we had a try disallowed that came from a kick. We also forced 4 GLDO's to cas' 1 (I think). I honestly never really felt that they were looking like scoring either from general play or kicks. The only one they scored from was an error due to the wet conditions and wouldn't have been scored if it were dry. You've also got to remember it was only sneyd's 2nd game back after a month out and he'll take time to find his feet again
fixem wrote:Radford wants Hull to be more savvy when attacking. An improved kicking game would help.
In my opinion Hull were the better team last night, but they do constantly shoot themselves in the foot. Gifting sides like Cas easy tries (they did it in the cup tie as well) is not clever, especially when Hull seem to have to work for their tries. The more Hull concede easy tries the more opponents will turn up expecting Christmas to arrive at some time in the game.
I agree about the errors and we also seem to concede in the 2 or 3 minutes before half time. For all of their flashy play, I don;t think cas are as good as us if both sides are at full strength and play to their best.
We also have to remember that we were playing the much vaunted best team in the Northern hemisphere so I'm just glad we didn't ship the 44 points they average at home
