The Hull FC half-back on gaining confidence, 2027 talk, and finishing the year strong.
Hull FC half-back Jake Arthur. (Image: Getty)
Jake Arthur isn’t shy in admitting he had a ‘rocky’ start to life at Hull FC, but the half-back, by his own admission, is now growing – and getting more confident as a result.
Swapping Australia for East Yorkshire last autumn, Arthur went root and branch in terms of lifestyle changes, but he’s now finding his feet in a new country and league, shaking off early-season injury niggles and getting a feel for his game again.
The result is a player who is beginning to hit his straps, with a growing impact and influence on the Hull team. However, while the 23-year-old is content with recent progress, he knows he still has a level or two to find.
“I’ve still got a lot of growth in me,” Arthur, speaking to Hull Live, said. “I had a rocky start to the year and I feel like I’m getting better these last few weeks and hopefully I can keep going.
“I was a bit unlucky there at the start with injuries and I had never experienced anything like that before, but yeah, my body has all been good since and I think that’s helped me build my confidence and just playing week to week and finding building the combinations with my teammates.
“I struggled a bit earlier in the year finding my style and how I fit into the team, but I feel over the last couple of months, I’ve just been getting a bit more consistency and building my game slowly.
“Lasty has given me a lot of confidence and he’s backing me to get my hands on the ball a lot more and take a bit more control.”
That authority has shown in recent weeks and months. Arthur has had his best games for Hull when taking a leading half-back role, working with Aidan Sezer in Hull’s halves from first receiver and as a lead kicker in general play.
“I think we’re both just helping each other,” Arthur said on that partnership. “We’re both sort of similar, but we’re playing on each side and then we’re swinging around and playing together with shape.
“The more both of us are passing the ball to each other, the better our attack looks. We’ve just been focused on that.”
For Arthur, it’s about kicking on now, with nine games to go of the season. And while it’s been a disappointing campaign for Hull, with a lot of talk and moving parts for next year, there’s motivation at least to finish this season the best way they can.
“It’s definitely there,” Arthur said on talk of 2027. “But this is our job and we’ve got to perform each week, so it’s important that we put that to the side and focus on game to game.
“The results don’t show it but in terms of effort and mentality, everyone is showing up each week. It’s just been a tough season. We’ve had a lot of injuries that have made it hard, but on top of that, at the end, we haven’t performed well enough.
“We’ve been in a lot of games and there’s probably just a few moments that we’d like back and that cost us. We’ve lost a lot of games by small margins, so if we can sort of turn them into the wins, the table turns very quickly.
“We’re just desperate for a win. We need to bring discipline and intensity to every game. We’ve been a bit inconsistent with that, getting up for the bigger games and then not for the games we are probably expected to win.
“We need to bring that intensity every day to training and then transfer that to the games. Hopefully then we can get some wins.”