Hull FC face Warrington Wolves this Saturday evening.
Hull FC celebrate a Harvey Barron try.
Hull FC meet Warrington Wolves and incoming head coach Steve McNamara this Saturday evening in what is set to be a unique and sentimental affair.
Set to take the Hull hot seat in November, McNamara, assistant to head coach Sam Burgess, has been a key component of a Wire machine that currently sits third in Super League and, in Hull interim coach Andy Last’s view, is a dark horse to win the competition.
Ticking along nicely, Warrington have won their last five games, three inside the last ten days, and now face a Hull side also celebrating their first Wembley win a decade ago, which, of course, came against the Wire.
“I just hope Steve goes in the right dugout to start with,” Last joked ahead of the clash. “It happens in the game. Last week I was in the opposite dugout to John Cartwright (former Hull coach). This week I’m in the opposite dugout to next year’s coach, Steve McNamara. That’s part and parcel of the game.”
On facing Warrington, Last continued: “They are a team that I think are the dark horses for the competition. They have floated under the radar; not many people have been speaking about them, but they’re in a good position. They’re in good form and they’ve got some momentum. We’re expecting a strong performance from them.”
For Hull, who defeated Cartwright’s Catalans side last week, the acid test now is going back to back and finding consistency in performance, something they haven’t done since March.
“That’s the challenge: go do it again,” Last said. “We got a good win at St Helens and then we had a poor performance against Castleford. It was a strong result against Catalans and aspects of our performance were good, so I’m hoping for a strong performance again.
“The boys have been in good spirits. We gave them the day off on Monday. It was a long day of travelling on Sunday from France. That knocked us about a bit; it was a physical game, a tough game, and it went for 80 minutes.
“We’ve recovered well. We got them moving on Tuesday, had another good session on Thursday, and are looking forward to the game on Saturday.”
On the performance at Catalans, Last pinpointed one area that was vastly improved: good ball attack. Hull have struggled to post points this year but they took their opportunities in Perpignan and looked dangerous throughout.
“I thought we got our game on,” Last said. “We looked dangerous every time we had the ball and we managed to keep the scoreboard kicking over.
“We made some basic errors too, which put us under pressure, but in the last 15 minutes of the match, when we needed to be good when our backs were to the wall, we were exceptional.
“We completed high and we turned the ball over in good areas of the field and when we got our opportunities to execute, we did so accordingly. We came up with some well-constructed tries and technical tries. It was a hard-fought victory and one we really enjoyed.
“We want to build on it now. We want to try and play our best 80 minutes every week. That’s going to be the challenge this week. We’re playing against a team that is very confident.
“They’ve had some exceptional results and they’ve got some dangerous players. In George Williams, they have the best player in Super League when he’s on. He’s an exceptional player, so we’re going to have to be good to beat them.
“They’re confident, and we know we need to play well, but I’m expecting a strong performance from us. We’re excited on the back of a good win and aspects of our performance that were strong. We can take a lot of confidence from that going into this game.”