BY JOHN DAVIDSON
“Time to go Tony”, “Sell up Adam your done here”, and “Get Tony gone now, 100 points conceded in 2 games is more than embarrassing!”.
That was some of the brutal online reaction to Hull FC’s 50-6 hammering at the hands of Huddersfield on the weekend. That early Challenge Cup exit made it five losses from six games in 2024, with just the solitary win coming against London.
Smashed by Leigh 54-4, beaten by Warrington 34-10 and Catalans 26-12, and dominated by Hull KR 22-0.
The Black & Whites sit in 10th spot on the Super League ladder, only above winless Castleford and London. Eliminated from the Cup, they have conceded 162 points and scored just 54, even less than the Tigers, this year.
Essentially, they are bad in both attack and defence.
After last season, when Hull FC finished 10th and only won 10 of 27 games, it shouldn’t surprise. But if anything, things seem to be getting worse.
In 2020 they finished sixth and scrapped into the playoffs. In 2021 they finished eighth and in 2022 they finished ninth.
The numbers don’t lie – they are headed downhill. And with their rising neighbours the Robins next up on Good Friday, another loss appears as certain as the next day’s sunrise.
The Black & Whites have recycled coach after coach since 2020 – Lee Radford, Andy Last, Brett Hodgson and now Tony Smith – and performances have not improved at all.
It leaves the question, why?
Many want to blame the owner, Adam Pearson. He has controlled the club since 2011.
Pearson enjoyed success five years into his reign when Hull FC won back-to-back Challenge Cups and finished third in consecutive seasons in Super League. They were a well-balanced and hard-nosed team in 2016-2017 that looked set to break the stranglehold on the competition of Wigan, Leeds and St Helens.
Instead that foundation has slipped away.
It is no secret that the club does not have a favourable deal as a tenant of the MKM Stadium. Despite good attendances, Hull FC does not make a lot of money from home games, and conflict internally is believed to be strong with fellow tenants Hull City and the stadium owners, the local council.
With a declining Super League TV rights deal, along with the impact of Covid, means Pearson has had to dip into his own pocket more and more. The belief is that Hull FC are now no longer spending the full salary cap, which is undoubtedly having an impact on recruitment and on-field performances, despite the public denials of the owner.
A window into how Pearson operates was provided by Gareth Ellis in his book Never the Easy Option. In it the former Hull FC captain and club great explains why he signed with them after leaving Wests Tigers, when he knocked back big offers from Leeds, St Helens, Wigan and virtually all of Super League.
Ellis explained how persuasive Pearson was in selling him the club and his grand plans, but also offered this: “It dawned on me after a week or two that I’d been duped a little.
“While I was deliberating over which club to sign for, Adam Pearson had sent me a video in which he sold the stadium and facilities. The training ground had looked like a state-of-the-art complex, but it had been one of those artist’s impression video fly-throughs and didn’t actually exist.”
Many supporters want to blame the CEO, James Clark, for Hull FC’s malaise.
A former radio presenter, broadcast journalist and media manager at the club, Clark has been an employee since 2009. He has been CEO since January 2017.
For an ex-journalist and public relations practitioner, Clark is rarely quoted in the media outside the Hull Daily Mail. He hardly ever does interviews.
Both Clark and Pearson did not respond for a request for comment from this publication.
There is zero question that the Black & Whites recruitment has suffered from the heights of 2017 to now.
Seven to eight years ago the club possessed the talents of Sika Manu, Mark Minichiello and Frank Pritchard. Before that they had the likes of Mark O’Meley and Craig Fitzgibbon in their ranks. Seasoned internationals and NRL veterans. Leaders of men and players who set standards.
Contrast that to 2024, when they have Herman Ese’ese, Jayden Okunbor, Franklin Pele and Fa Brown. Pele was unproven in the NRL and copped a heavy ban on his Super League debut. His discipline is poor.
Okunbor was average at an NRL club that won several wooden spoons. He was deregistered by the NRL in 2020 for an off-field incident, but later challenged that ban and was reinstated.
Ese’ese and Brown’s quality is not in question, but Brown has been used out of position in the halves where he is much better suited at hooker. That ties into Hull FC’s recruitment and retention policies. Have they been effective enough? Most would say not.
You could tie this into the costly departure of the general manager of football operations Motu Tony in 2017. His exit was a huge, huge blow for the club.
Since Tony left their recruitment has been largely hit and miss. The signing of Jake Connor, who fell out with coach Hodgson and later left, Jake Clifford, who left early, and others like Tex Hoy and Josh Reynolds have simply not worked out.
Chris Satae was strangely allowed to leave at the end of last year, and he is now ripping up trees at Catalans Dragons. Morgan Smith was signed, despite being unwanted at relegated Wakefield.
Other players, some homegrown, have been allowed to leave and thrive elsewhere. Jez Litten and Jordan Abdull have both done exceptionally well at Hull KR, and become England internationals, and were both Hull FC products.
From the outside it appears not enough locals are coming through the club’s academy and making their mark in the first-team, especially compared to some of their rivals. Hull FC do seem to be now trying to correct that trend, and invest in their pathways, and Jack Charles is one who has real potential. But it takes time.
Culture is another issue that crops up constantly at the Black & Whites.
Smith has constantly said since he was appointed that he is trying to change the club’s culture for the better.
In his book, Ellis wrote: “What we struggled to eradicate was what I would call the ‘banter’ culture at Hull. It had existed for as long as I had been at the club, not just taking the piss out of each other but, more worryingly, out of the values you pretend to uphold. At the top clubs, they know when the banter ends and the serious stuff begins.”
Big defeats have become the norm at Hull FC.
Huge losses, where players appear unwilling to put their bodies on the line and scorelines blow out, have been regular every year.
There is another insightful tale from Ellis’ stellar book. In it he talks about how one of his teammates, who is unnamed, reacted to a one-sided loss.
“It’s Monday morning, a few days after we lost on Friday. We didn’t just lose though, we were beaten in every aspect of the game. I can cope with defeat, but I can’t just ignore it. I have been looking forward to training this morning, time to put it right and start preparing for the next game.
“I’m up early, coffee, smoothie, and then I jump in the car. I pull into the training ground just before eight and I’m into my kit quickly. The session is about to start and we’re all ready to go. Then I hear a car pull into the car park, tyres screeching on gravel.
“One of my teammates is cutting it fine. Laughing and joking as he waltzes into the changing room with his bag swung over his shoulder, I feel my jaw clench. He sits down opposite me and starts getting his stuff together, no rush. It’s only been two and a half days since we were played off the park.
“The man opposite me had missed tackles, made errors and here he is, not a care in the world. I want to say something, but I don’t know where to start or how it will end. I don’t want a fight or confrontation, I just want him to give a shit.
“I want him to want to play better next week and understand that what he does this morning, tomorrow and the next day has an impact on what he does next Friday.”
Former halfback Jake Clifford had this to say recently about the standards at Hull FC in 2023. When asked on Australian radio if he could compare a pre-season in England and Australia, he said: “No chance. Pre-season in England was a piece of piss really compared to what we go through here.”
It is no coincidence that St Helens and Wigan, the two teams who have won every Super League grand final since 2018, are renowned for the intensity of their training and brutal pre-season schedules.
The club has tried to change their culture by often changing coaches, support staff and players, but none seems to have worked.
Over the past few years Ellis has gone as an assistant coach, replaced by Simon Grix. Last has gone, with Stanley Gene in, while Michael Shenton has been and gone, Francis Cummins has been hired as the head of emerging talent, Jason Davidson appointed as head of performance and Peter Riding hired as head of youth.
A huge amount of turnover in the space of 18 to 24 months.
Many point the finger of blame for the current predicament at Tony Smith. Many supporters want him sacked.
The Australian won trophies at Leeds and Warrington. He had success at Hull KR, getting them into the playoffs, before his messy eventual exit there.
The 57-year-old is a strong-willed character who has fallen out with the hierarchy and some players at other clubs before. He is publicly confident he can turn Hull FC around. Smith has certainly hit more sixes in his coaching career than had ducks. Though if the losses keep racking up in the weeks ahead, he appears doomed.
But it is clear the problems at the Black & Whites have existed long before Smith moved to the joint.
The exit of Motu Tony, the revolving door of head coaches, abject recruitment, poor administration, an under-performing pathways, bad discipline, a stuttering spine, a weak culture, players out of position, a soft team underbelly combined with a sizeable injury list.
Take your pick for the reasons for Hull FC’s horror run.
There’s no easy fix, no magic bullet.
“Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan,” JFK once said. At the moment Hull FC is an orphanage and for now there is no clear end to the heartbreak in sight.
