Smith seems to have had very mixed results in his first year at his four previous SL clubs. At his first club (Huddersfield) they were relegated in his first year before bouncing back up. At Leeds and Warrington he won trophies in the first year but at Hull KR they finished next to bottom in Year 1.

One thing that is clear though is that Smith has not had a single spell at a SL club where he hasn't achieved relative success at some point. Whilst the manner of the last two defeats has been really poor (and some of the defensive efforts against Salford were just inexcusable), there was always a sense that it would take him a year to make the changes needed for Hull to hopefully start to re-emerge in 2024.

He did sign Coote, SKD and Parcell, and on paper Vete, BT and Simms looked good on paper.

Brought in the likes of Storton, Ryan, King, Mimi, Milnes, Abdul, Litten and Halton, plus others. I'd say how recruitment was pretty successful.

Probably involved in those years recruitment too.

hull need to get rid of most of the pack that has failed dismally the last 3 years.in fact the only change we made to the pack from last year was to let one of our few forewards with any size go.mau.and who did we sign,yes another hooker.we also cant afford a foreward pack that has fash,cator,brown and lane in it.you can get away with one small foreward in an otherwise big pack,but not 4.hulls youth system is appaling, most of the young forewards we bring through are not big enough,we bring young halfs in with no flair and young threequarters with no pace..houghton,taylor,griffin,savelio,lovodua and carlos should have been shown the door during the close season.

How do you release all those players, would cost thousands to pay them off, I'm all for suggestions, but they have ti be possible.

Agree with your other points though, we need some size, but also speed at the sake time, Sao and Satae are big blokes but can be a bit lazy in defence, need big blokes that can defend too.

Need forwards like Vaughan.

i agree about sao and satae,really good going foreward,but not very good when its back to the wall and we are up against it.i still say most of this pack needs to go in the next year or so.you can have the best backs in the world,but unless your pack gets on top they wont do much.we are also desperate for natural leader in the team.

Yeah, in fairness I just looked at the squads we had at the start of 2019 and the start of 2022. Overall, I think most people would say it was a decent upgrade… just looks more coherent. But we did have to go through a pretty sobering 2020 and the unusual circumstances associated with it.

I think those mixed year 1 results reflect very mixed circumstances. Very few coaches disrupt SL’s entrenched hierarchy.

That for me is going to be the biggest indication of where the playing squad is at along with what the Coaching team see as acceptable. I don't think any Hull fan is expecting anything at Saints other than 100% effort win, lose or draw but another pitiful effort like we saw on Saturday then St's will more than likely put on a massive score.

I think Smith is still the right guy based on his credentials and previous record at other SL clubs. He certainly changed the trajectory of the 1st team playing squad and laid the foundations that Rovers are now seeing the benefit of.
Everyone knew it was a big job to do but the size of the task ahead for Smith at Hull FC was there for all to see on Saturday. This year is I can see going pretty much the way last season went for Wire & Powell which as long as we see real progress and change particularly in terms of attitude and application from the playing group then that is at least something. With 20 OOC players end of this season unless there is a massive turn over of those then I can't see anything else changing in to next season.

Neither does having Lane on a three year contract but i agree very poor managment at the top

Hodgson has a lot to answer for
All his signings were poor and some less than poor and we now have to live with them whilst on the clubs books