John Cartwright, the head coach of Hull FC, addressed the media on Thursday afternoon prior to Sunday’s Super League Round 15 matchup with the Salford Red Devils. This is what he said.
JC: It was very hard to set any sort of task at the start of the year, just with how many new players we had. It was more about getting our game right; they were all new to each other, so we wanted to get tight as a group and compete hard every week. I think, outside a game or two, we’ve done that—we’ve been disappointed with some losses, but in those games, we still had chances to win the games as well. That’s one box ticked. The boys go out, and they compete hard. They try until the field whistle. Last week, we weren’t happy with how we played, but we liked the way we competed—we never gave up, and we kept on playing until the end.
JC: I don’t believe so, but until we win one there, it’s going to keep popping up. The more attention you pay to it, the more it plays on the minds of the players. It’s just preparing well, knowing the opposition, and trusting our game—I’ve been in this situation before at different clubs. You’ve got to be careful how much attention you give to it, as it tends to manifest itself.
It’s there; we all know it’s there, and last week probably extenuated it more than before because it was a game we started as favourites. It was a game we expected to win, and being at home and losing it adds to what’s been quite a while now. It’s not something we’re dwelling on, and we certainly want to repay our fans and each other with a good result at home. We’ve just got to keep working towards it. It’s really important, as we’ve got a lot of games at home at the back end of the year, big games, and it’s going to be tight fighting for the play-offs. There are going to be a lot of big games at home between now and the end of the year.
JC: It’s about our process and getting things right—doing what we did well when we were winning games. There’s no secret there, and that’s all the messages have been all week—keep things simple and do well what we do well. The result will take care of itself. We came in Tuesday, and I sensed they were really hurting about the loss but also getting ready for the game this Sunday. But there’s not a magic wand where you can fix errors. They are part and parcel of the game, but if you get two or three guys all at once having a bad day, then it’s very, very hard to win. Statistically, with what we turned up with last week, and it didn’t matter who we could have played, we were never going to win that game. We just gave up way too many chances to the opposition, which is an area where we’ve been pretty good at it in our last month of football. We’ve dealt with it, and we’ve trained well this week.
JC: It’s great—the more they can play, the better. We’re fortunate that we’ve been able to land them a spot. That’s where they learn. It’s good to be able to train against the opposition they train against every week, but when the whips are cracking and it’s full contact and full noise, that’s when you learn.
And how about the two already at Hunslet, Ryan Westerman and Will Kirby? Not to mention Brad Fash and Will Gardiner on dual reg at Doncaster.
The boys who went to Hunslet pushed Featherstone all the way. They did good jobs. Gards and Fashy have also been doing a great job at Doncaster—they’re competing and winning most weeks. It’s a win-win for us and the clubs they go to.
You were at the reserves’ derby win over Hull KR on Saturday. What did you make of that?
JC: It was a good game. It was very physical. It was a great promotion for the game in Hull. It was at one of the local clubs, Cott Tigers, and there was a big crowd in attendance. Both supporters got behind their teams, and it was played in great spirit. We had our whole squad there, and there were a lot of kids there just having a lot of fun and getting photos—it was a great performance from us and a great promotion for the game.
JC: The Kemp boys, Will Hutch, and Jack—they played really well. They’re really, really young and have lots of time in front of them, but they’re steering that team around very well. You’d love to be able to get them game experience at the next level up as well, but at the moment, they’re doing a good job running our reserve grade team.
With talk of quota extensions and the like, would it be possible to see an extended salary cap in the future?
JC: That’s more a question for the clubs themselves – the last thing you want to see is clubs try and keep pace with the wealthy clubs and not be able to sustain that, but the better the salary cap, the better the quality of player and the better the quality of competition we’re going to get. However, that’s perfect world stuff, and it’s what we can afford to pay at the end of the day. If you raise it, it would be fantastic for the competition, and the quality of the competition will go up, but we don’t want clubs going broke.
