Yes he also says something along the lines that Smith improved every player every year and that he brought the right players in and if any player didn't buy into the culture he was let go.

I get that totally but, surely, these coaches , Radford in particular, had regular dialogue with AP?

He must know, unless he's totally detached, that there is a core of players that need to go, he pays their wages and I honestly think that he'll act on it now. He has to. I know we all say we'll vote with our feet, but if we get a decent coach and can offload/sack or whatever the individuals that are disruptive and causing all the problems, sign a decent pack leader or two then we'll all give it another go and things would look brighter. I also think an open cross floor forum would help enormously, but I doubt that would be sanctioned as I feel certain, with the level of anger and resentment we all have, something would spill over into individual blaming and pointing of fingers.

He’s obviously changed then. The three Aussies he brought to HKR did not tiurn out well. He continued to support BT after his brush with the law when he should have looked at offloading him.

He did get you to a SL semi final with a very average squad.



You have a habit of rewriting history Keith.

Thats all well and good , but Hull cannot simply afford to sack those individuals that you refer to, or at least not before their contracts run out. It would be too expensive for Adam Pearson to contemplate doing, especially given Hulls current financial predicament. Plus, where would Hull find the quality players to replace those that were sacked or released from their contracts? All the best players have already been signed up by other clubs for this season. So, any quality additions, assuming that Hull could afford them, would probably have to come from the lower divisions.

In my opinion Hull will have to ride the current storm for while and hope that the new coach can at least get them in a position where they can attract better players in the future. Not an impossible task but it will take time and patience on the part of the club and its fans.

Hull FC may have to take a step back before been able to move forward again.

I get the feeling they will be a fall guy from the playing staff, I think logically an axe will be shown to the playing group in an attempt for them to change attitude.



Probably a big personality in the playing group, not a josh Bowden type of scapegoat.

Why are all these Rovers fans bothered about our new coach/ recruitment process?

Lets be honest if we sack certain players we would find equal quality at West Hull under 8s. Probably more mature as well.

Well to be fair, after what I witnessed on Saturday I would have to agree with you on that one.

We can't afford to take too many steps backwards, we're already a touch too close to the cliff edge, a couple of further steps back and we will be over it

Probably because it is rumoured to be Smith, and we haven’t completely resolved how we feel about his time at Rovers and we don’t really know how we feel about this. Well, I don’t anyway.



His first interview after appointment and Peters’ first after arrival will both be really interesting, on a few levels.

I just don't get why most fans are painting him out to be a failure, which he wasn't.



I get the animosity towards him after his exit. But most Rovers fans have spent the last few months saying you've moved on from him.



It'll make that first derby extra spicy at least

2009 was a bad time for the club, the class of 2006 had either got old and/or had lost their mojo, a recession had hit and funds were low for the fans and an untested assistant was in charge...sound familiar?

Not at all. Everything I said was true. We got to the semifinals despite the three poor signings. The incident with BT came in his second year the semi final was in the first. I was responding to the statement that TS made good signings and offloaded players who did not fit into the culture. The three were not good signings and BT obviously did not fit into the culture of the club. As usual you choose to ignore the context of the discussion so you can make your silly snide remark

He definitely wasn’t a failure. I’d be entirely comfortable calling his time at Rovers an equivocal success.



He misjudged his leaving announcement, imo, but I’ve got no animosity to him at all - I don’t think the decision itself was wrong, in any sense. There’s a few things where, if he talks about what he wants to do at Hull in some specific different ways to how he talked about Rovers, it’ll pee me off a bit - even acknowledging these are different clubs in somewhat different situations.



I expect he’ll give Hull a boost, and he carries enough weight to sort out some of the perceived attitude problems that have been claimed to afflict your club for a while. There are some potential downsides, but there are always are with any appointment. He looks like a good option and he’s probably the best immediately available option.

Do you think Tony Smith is a top class SL coach who has improved every team he has been involved with including Rovers?

If Smith comes in and its odds on he will he will want to work with someone he knows and trusts as his assistant.

My only concern now is we are playing catchup with regards to recruitment with our second row particularly weak.

Getting rid of Taylor and Griffin should be a priority for Smith once he is confirmed, and if we can offload Evans it would give us another overseas slot as we surely can do better than Evans .

I'm willing to give Evans one more chance, he has looked good in patches but had a very stop start season with bans and injuries.

Easier said than done when under contract and no takers. Pearson surely cannot pay them all off.



We may have to keep them and hope the new coach can get a tune out of them.

As a follow up it was good that both Korbin and Albert upped their performances after Mags was put in charge. Korbin unfortunately could not play in the derby due to suspension but Albert had his best game at Rovers in his last match. He terrorised your team and played really big minutes. There is obviously a good player in there TS for some reason was unable to bring the best out of him.

Yes I do. It was only the manner of his resignation that soured the experience.

yes i realise that but you have to look to wheel and deal.Taylor will know what thats all about and Griffin isnt worth a first team place so put him on gardening duty until he agrees to move on.

Thank you. That's all I'm interested in.

you sound like a Lawyer