Hull FC Head Coach Richard Agar writes from Coach’s Corner for the very first time this season, giving us his thoughts on a sensational start to Super League XV following victory over St.Helens at Knowsley Road on Saturday.
Welcome to my first blog of 2010 and I hope you have all had a decent off-season and I am sure you are all delighted that rugby league is finally back!
It was a terrific way to kick of the season at Saints, it was a superb team effort from every single one of the boys who have worked extremely hard all pre-season and I am delighted they managed to carry some of that out on to the pitch.
It thought we had to soak up a lot of early pressure, but we handled that ok and right across the board we put in a pretty strong team effort, looked composed and when we got our chances we took them very well. It was also really pleasing for me to see us claim a couple of tries that we started inside our own half.
For Saints, I thought they were hampered by losing two outside backs in Soliola and Gardner and I think that was difficult for them in terms of losing a bit of rotation and it affected the middle unit as the game wore on. However, I still thought we soaked it up pretty well in there and we played quite strong in that area.
We weathered them really and played with a lot of energy ourselves and that is a great effort for the first game of the year. We had limited preparation time as a team and haven’t really had that many opportunities to gel, so to see such a performance on Saturday was very pleasing.
On top of that, keeping Saints scoreless for 65minutes is always a pretty good effort, we obviously lost Tansey into the sin-bin and they got a bit of a roll on us which Saints can always do and that’s when we conceded both their tries, although there was some conjecture over whether Gidley had actually scored which I thought was a great example of how desperate we scrambled.
However, there was always only going to be one man dominating the headlines after that match and that was of course Sean Long, it had to be really didn’t it!
It was always going to be a big show from him but he has been doing this for a long time and none of us should be that surprised by his performance.
The irony this week was that we thought the boys were starting to get a little anxious towards the game and we were a little worried they were going to play them game before we actually turned up.
But of all the people to calm them down it was Longy that gave them the talk, having since admitted it was one of his most nerve wracking weeks, but he calmed them down and we made sure they didn’t play the game too early.
That is the mark of where Sean is as a player, he recognised how the boys were getting, addressed it and you could see that focus from him on Saturday. He is a natural leader on and off the field and it highlights why he was such a strong candidate for the captain’s role.
But across the team, we are a very tight bunch; we kept turning up for each other, tackled for each other and for me, that was one of the main features of the victory. We came up with one on ones and missed very few tackles, we completed at 90% and if you put all those factors together you are always going to be in the game.
Fitzgibbon and O’Meley showed everyone exactly why we have brought them here and I thought a fully fit Lauaki proved to be a real handful for Saints and I just wished he could have beaten another couple of men to finish off that great run he made!
But Saturday was all about the team performance, I have spoken previously about the unity amongst the boys and they really showed that at the weekend and worked hard for each other and worked hard for a victory.
We know you guys will have been delighted with the win and the travelling support was just magnificent all match, but we while we let you guys enjoy the moment which you deserve after a couple of difficult seasons, we know it is time for us to get our heads down and kick on from here.
We have got a great leg up now with that win, but we can’t get carried away. We must continue to work as hard as we can, improve on the things we need to improve on and continue to gel every time we play together.
It is a long, hard season but I am really pleased with how the lads have started and we certainly have a solid platform to build on from here. It is always nice to get the first run-out out of the way and to now be up and running. There will be ups and downs, but I am confident we have the personnel to be a consistent team in Super League this season.
Next up is a very good Huddersfield side and the boys can’t wait to get out there in front of a packed house at the KC. It sounds like it could be a bumper crowd too following the weekend and the guys in the office tell me the East Stand is already close to selling out, so that promises a cracking atmosphere and we can’t wait for that.
All the best this week and we’ll see you Friday.
Best Wishes
Richard
Don’t forget, you will be able to hear more from the Hull FC Head Coach on hullfc.tv’s Big Match Preview this week before the first of his regular column’s in the new look, Hull FC match day programme.
Agar will continue to write a Blog on www.hullfc.com after every game.
