Hull FC’s poor start to the season continued at Leigh.
Hull FC prop Sam Lisone in action. (Image: SW PIX)
John Cartwright put errors and penalties down to Hull FC’s disappointing Challenge Cup exit at Leigh Leopards, with the side unable to recover from a poor start on their way to a 16-6 defeat.
Behind the curveball for the opening 30 minutes, Hull were dominated by a spirited Leigh side before they finally got a foothold in the game.
Off the pace early on, Hull struggled to get momentum and when they got on an even keel in the second half, their attack was clunky and out of sorts in another performance that was off the required standard to win games at this level.
“It’s errors, it’s six agains, it’s penalties,” Cartwright, speaking post-match, said when asked where Hull are going wrong. “It’s very hard to get any flow with the ball when you’re inconsistent with your sets.
“It was a scrappy affair. They probably started the game better – they took advantage of a couple of opportunities that they got.
“We’ve been struggling to score points since the season started, so a ten-point lead there towards the end was always going to be tough for us the way we have been with ball in hand.
“For us, it’s just discipline. There were too many errors and too many penalties. We defended our half for the first 25 minutes. They played well. They aimed up and they had plenty of line speed and they made things hard for us.
“I thought we came out the other side of that and if we could have been consistent with ball in hand, then we could have broken them down later in the game, but we just gave them too many leg-ups.”
Continuing an unwanted trend, Hull were beaten to the punch again early on, and when they finally got a sniff, they didn’t lay down the necessary building blocks to get the game going in their favour – a reality Cartwright conceded post-match.
“Last week we got the better of the start at Wakefield, but you’re right, every other game that we’ve played, we’ve been behind on the scoreboard and behind on the momentum,” Cartwright, outlining where Hull are going wrong, admitted. “I thought today we weathered it. They did have a lot of the territory, but we came out of the other side.
“But we just weren’t prepared to build a game. We got some decent balls, and instead of playing the long game, we tried to score pretty much every time we got the ball. There was a bit of confusion and some clunkiness.
“We’re just not marching our way downfield. We’re trying to do things on the back of no foundation – that’s the best way to put it. We’re not building into a game.
“We’re not getting far enough up the field to kick from a decent position, and then frustration leads to penalties and then that just compounds the problem. It’s a team thing. We’ve got to cut down our penalties and then our errors might cut down on the back of it.
“But they hung in. Our scramble was there; I lost count of the number of penalties they got, but we kept turning up. Ten points in a game is nothing, and with ten minutes to go I still fancied if we got across the line, we could come up with something to get a win, but it didn’t go our way. Davy’s break was the big one. I thought that might have been the moment. But it wasn’t meant to be. Their effort was there, but at the moment, it’s not to be.”