Five Stella consumed and heading shortly to the Groves Inn for some hand pulled bitter.

I may get a few more down before this afties 3-38pm train back to Ull.

Quite like this Clayton hotel. It's fanny central.

Hen nights just arrived at the bar.

The Groves might have to wait. ☺

We have to remember that two years ago we'd been well beaten at home by Leeds in the Challenge Cup quarter finals. We then limped into the top eight by winning at Craven Park in round 22 before being hammered at home by Wigan and we then went on to lose six out of seven Super 8 matches and finished fourteen points off the top four.



Back to back Cup wins and two third place finishes since then is terrific progression.

Brian McDermot said that was the best 25 minutes Leeds have played for a very, very long time. That we came back to be only 6 behind at the break is a credit to the endeavour the players put in. That we put ourselves in front shows how good a side we are.

However mistakes were made - thought Shaul could have done better for Ward's try were he just looked and did nothing to stop it, was one that stood out in the first half, but there were plenty of others that do need looking at (Tackling for their last try was very poor) and no doubt will be looked at so that we can be better in the future.



The effort was outstanding, Ellis running down Walker in the second half was incredible but just execution was lacking at times, the last 10 minutes we just did not control things as we should have (As Radford mentioned), against a side like Leeds you can't afford to do that.



Whilst Leeds were superb that first 25 minutes you can't help but wonder if how we played that first segment was in any way influenced by the team only getting to the ground an hour before kickoff, it certainly can't have helped what with all the pressure of the game being there in any case. why you would want to leave it so late to leave on a Friday afternoon is anyone's guess but that needs to be addressed as a matter of course.



Very positive season, some disappointments of course but then it wouldn't be Hull FC if it was all perfect.

It really is. Minimal changes too, low single-digit changes to the squad - that's crucial if we are to sustain the momentum and team spirit. Paea was a very popular squad member and Ellis is obviously staying in the set-up with Hadley and Abdull also returning. Excited to see Faraimo too, given we've been pursuing him for years.

After the performances of the team in the first 2 years of Radford’s tenure he was deserving of the sack, he showed nothing to say he was good enough to be a coach in super league.

Way too simplistic - performance on the field was never going to happen overnight.

Changes behind the scenes were a major factor in the success we are now enjoying.

His 2nd season (2015) wasn't that bad, had a lot of injuries and played a lot of young kids in the 8's and put in some good performances, showed signs for things to come and kicked on from there in 2016



Another good season positives for me



Super 8's performance

Winning the cup

Young players coming through and looking the part

Our attacking play, improved on 2016.

Coping with big game players missing, particularly Ellis and Houghton



Two big areas of improvement



Home form

Stop blow away scores.



Solid recruitment for 2018, looking forward to it again.

Agreed. In a recent interview he said when he started the job he knew what he wanted to change and how he would do it. Pearson supported him and it came through. I was a bit twitchy in his first season but always really liked Radford as a bloke so helped patience

Thank you Hull FC for a great season. Pity we just fell short at the last hurdle, but we are up there now and need to keep the momentum going next year. Two CC wins in a row is a brilliant launch pad for 2018.

Agree on the areas of improvement, we need to make the KCOM a fortress again. Also need to grow crowds as we seem to have hit a plateau of 10k and it's not obvious why more aren't turning out (maybe worth the club spending some money on market research) getting another 1 or 2k in would really help the atmosphere.



Blow out scores are a bit of a mystery as you can put some down to under estimating the opposition like Leigh at home. But we also didnt turn up for big games like Saints at the Magic Weekend. We need to find a level where we get the win but not go all out and be tired for the week after. It still feels a bit 'all or nothing' with the performances most of the time.

Our home form has been worse than our away form for the last 2 years. If it were consistently better I'm sure the crowds would improve

We will miss Fonua for sure but he does miss tackles and last night came up with five errors.

Not sure that will be good enough for success in the NRL so i wouldnt be surprised to see him back in two or three years.

Our fitness and effort on the field is second to none but you are correct our attack particularly in the opposition 20 needs attention as we rely almost entirely on a sneyd kick on the last tackle.

We attack too deep with players passing the ball backwards sometimes as much as five or six metres which is easy for the opposition to defend.

If you watch the Catleford/Saints game then our match last night this is really highlighted and makes the Castleford attack look slick and our attack slow.

Im sure Radford can see this but it does need attention.

Still gutted from last night as i dont think we will get a better chance of a Grand Final victory than this season with Ellis in the team.

Had no doubt we would have beaten Castleford in the final