An honest account from a ‘disappointed’ Andy Last.
Hull FC’s Tom Briscoe and Harry Newman dejected after their side’s loss to Toulouse.(Image: SW PIX)
Andy Last has reacted to a ‘bitterly disappointing’ Hull FC performance against Toulouse Olympique and believes his players ‘only dipped their toe in’ against the French side.
The Black and Whites were defeated 12-4 at the MKM Stadium on Sunday afternoon, with Toulouse starting the game as the better team and scoring two quick-fire tries. Hull’s only response came through Tom Briscoe, with the side beaten to the punch once again in a game they were expected to win.
A common theme in Hull’s history, the side have turned in woeful performances when the favoured team, and it’s something Last, who saw his side have a mountain of possession but fail to score in the second half, admitted he has ‘to cop’ and ‘get to the bottom of’ quickly.
Speaking post-match, the interim head coach said: “It wasn’t a great game to be a part of. We got a great crowd in and we didn’t give them any great moments to get behind us and sing. I’m really disappointed with the performance, especially considering what we spoke of all week in terms of attitude.
“I thought we dipped our toes in. They got 12 points in front and they got the confidence. We were just unable to knock that out of them. I thought the game lacked a bit of flow. There were lots of stop-starts, and the way that we played, we lacked fluency and we lacked speed; it was just disappointing on the back of a good performance last week where we looked sharp. This was a flat performance and there’s a lot to work on.
“We had 46 play of the balls in the opposition half, which is a massive amount. We just didn’t pose a big enough threat. We played too laterally, I felt, and playing laterally in those conditions, you lack a little bit of detail in your shifts because the ball players aren’t digging into the line as much as they need to be.
“That allows the defending team to map off and when they map off, it ends up being one on one a lot of the time. They are the small details we need to be confident in those wet conditions to still keep digging into the line to preserve the space. We just didn’t do that well enough. The spine, in particular, wasn’t as fluent and on the same page.”
Asked if he can put his finger on why these performance drops keep happening, especially at home, Last, who admitted they are in the DNA of Hull FC, said: “I can’t and those are the questions we’ll be asking as a group of staff and as a playing group. I felt like we prepared well and the messaging was good in terms of attitude and showing the opposition respect, but for whatever reason, the final part of the week, the eighty minutes, which is the most important part of the week, we just didn’t nail. I’m bitterly disappointed.
“Good players turn up every week. And I think we’ve got too many who believe and think they are good players but they don’t deliver week in, week out. And the really good ones do. What we’ve got to do is strive to make sure our players are aware that the good ones turn up every week. We had too many today that were 4/5 out of 10 and we need to be 7 or 8 out of 10 to get the two points.
“I’m just really disappointed for the supporters – 12,000 have turned up – and we’ve gone in and put in a performance like that. I’m bitterly disappointed for them and for the boys.
“We wanted to try and build some momentum. There’s some soul searching going on in that changing room and rightly so. There are some questions that need to be asked as a group of staff and we need those players to come up with the answers tomorrow.”
The club celebrated the 35-year anniversary of their 1991 Premiership final success over Widnes before the game, with over 12,615 in attendance at the MKM Stadium.
“I wish I could have brought some of them on late in the game, “Last said. “The club have done a great job in getting that ’91 team together and getting over 12,000 people to come and watch us – and we’ve failed to deliver a performance.
“I’m the face of it, and I’ll cop it, but that wasn’t good enough and I’ll be making sure the players are aware of it and we’ll be better when we perform against Bradford.”