Hull FC's big reality check kickstarted season change as worst part now over

Richie Myler with his first Hull FC signing of the year, Tom Briscoe.
-Credit: (Image: SW Pix)


Hull FC brought the curtain down on their 2024 season on Saturday afternoon, with the Black and Whites suffering their 25th and final defeat of the year against Catalans Dragons. Here, Hull Live takes a look at some talking points behind a below-par and, at times, mental campaign.

One of the worst ever

There's no beating around the bush; 2024 was one of the worst seasons in Hull's entire 159-year history. Avoiding the wooden spoon on points difference alone, it is up there with the 1963/64 and 1999 campaigns, largely regarded as the club's worst ever, with the numbers making for some grim reading.

Managing just three wins all season, the win percentage from 28 games was just 10.71%, well below the 16.1% record from 1999 and 20% from 1963-64 (boosted by four Eastern Division wins). Further still, Hull, scored just 334 points all year and conceded a whopping 944. They averaged just 11.9 points a game all season and conceded an average of 33.7. Both figures are the worst in the four-point try era.

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Enduring a woeful run of results, Hull were nilled two times and managed just one try a game on nine further occasions. They also conceded fifty points or more in five separate games and leaked sixty in another, with an embarrassing campaign getting what it deserved: a joint-bottom finish.

Big reality check sparks change

Despite heading into the year confident that they could compete, Hull, namely Adam Pearson, realised that fundamental change had to come immediately. Accepting how low the club had sunk, Pearson made arguably the biggest changes in 13 years as club chairman, parting ways with Tony Smith and James Clark and then appointing Richie Myler as Director of Rugby in April, with Myler understood to be attached to investment to the club through Andrew Thirkill.

As for Hull's plight, which has been ongoing for years with 8th, 9th, 10th, and now 11th-placed finishes, a lot can be put down to poor recruitment and retention, which has got worse year on year and came home to roost this season, a massive reason why Myler was brought in.

Undergoing fundamental change in every performance department, there has been some progress made, and Hull's 2025 signings are certainly better than what they've got now, but there's still a long way to go, even if there is a clear plan for the future. That plan centres around new head coach John Cartwright, with the Aussie working alongside the likes of Simon Grix and Francis Cummins, who have held the fort this year in what was a difficult and thankless task, not to mention the returning Andy Last. Again, that plan is centred around hard work, and nothing less, with experience and youth set to meet in the middle and hopefully drive the club forward, ensuring that they never get to this point again.

Context

Of course, there is context behind Hull's season, particularly the second half of it. In their quest for fundamental change, Hull have overseen countless departures, but a further reality is that not enough came back the other way, and when it did, the club were sucker punched. Take Ben Reynolds, for instance, leaving the club and not being replaced with King Vuniyayawa then ruled out for the rest of the year with an ankle injury on just his second appearance. Or how about new quota signing Treigh Stewart, with the Papua New Guinean's Hull career cut short before it even started with a domestic violence charge in Australia. Mental.

That sort of adversity was common throughout the year, with injury counts in double figures for most weeks altering the matchday side. As a result, Hull got no continuity into selections with no time to build up understandings and combinations. That, ultimately, did them no favours and contributed to performances that lacked cohesion in both attack and defence, although some of that has to be placed on attitude and the like, which has also been questioned.

There's also a reality that Hull's injury fate was also of their own making. Whether Hull were best prepared for the 2024 campaign is up for debate, with all the voices suggesting the upcoming pre-season will be more intense and feature a heftier workload with new backroom staff to be added into the picture. The hope is that approach will help avoid a repeat of the injury toll, but it wasn't just injuries that hampered Hull. Their discipline was also woeful, with the most cards in Super League this year at 23. The constant numerical disadvantages and subsequent bans did Hull little favour and ensured they were forced to keep chopping and changing their sides, something that, when all added up, made for an impossible task.

The bright sparks

Among the likes of Herman Ese'ese, Yusuf Aydin, etc, Hull's bright sparks this season were their young players. Several rising talents have led the way, and none more so than the back three of Logan Moy, Lewis Martin, and Harvey Barron. Working hard every week, the trio got Hull's sets moving. They've all got pace to burn as well and are set to be mainstays on future squads.

Elsewhere, Jack Charles also stepped up throughout the year. The half-back had a different spine combination most weeks, while his right edge was also changed by the round, but he continued to make a fist of it and gave it everything.

The likes of Denive Balmforth also got plenty of appearances under his belt this year. Balmforth showed promise, particularly in the summer, with his running game. He knows he needs to tidy up other areas, but what young player is the full package at 20? The same goes for all. In Zach Jebson, Matty Laidlaw, Davy Litten, Nick Staveley, and the like, there's plenty of potential, but the challenge now is to nurture potential and grow into first-team players, with experienced signings coming in to help them do just that.

It's going to take time, and patience will be required, but so long as Hull show improvement next year, compete for everything, and improve fundamentally in terms of effort, desire, and the like, then the only way is up.

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