Hull FC face Huddersfield in a bottom of the table clash on Thursday.
Hull FC interim head coach Andy Last.
Andy Last has challenged his Hull FC side to play with the right character in the final seven games of the season and not slip into any former bad habits.
The Black and Whites have dropped to 13th in Super League on the back of 12 defeats in their last 14 games. But regardless of the volume of defeats, there’s only been one where character was questioned: the first half against Leigh Leopards earlier this month.
That question was quickly nipped in the bud with the response after half-time, and otherwise, Hull have at least been competitive compared to the 2024 season, which saw regular heavy defeats and attitude, pride, etc., questioned. That’s a trap Last doesn’t want to see his Hull side fall into now, with a basement battle against Huddersfield Giants coming up on Thursday night.
“It’s something that the 2024 team was accused of: no pride, throwing the towel in, and waving the white flag, and that is something that we as a group didn’t want to be labelled as again,” Last said. “Over the course of the last 18 months, we’ve been gritty, we’ve got far more resilience, we’ve got far more determination about us, and we stay close on the scoreboard.
“But all the work that we’ve done for 18 months in terms of grit and resilience, we could quickly undo, having two or three performances back to back where it looks as though we’ve thrown the towel in and unplugged.
“That first-half performance against Leigh, I just don’t know where it came from, and that’s the challenge of this game; if you’re not connected and you haven’t got the six inches between your ears right, when you step out onto that pitch, it’ll show itself because it’s too hard of a game not to get yourself ready mentally and not to get yourself ready physically for a battle. And if you don’t do that, it does show itself in your performance.
“There are some games where you’d maybe put on the boots, and you just don’t quite fancy it, and what happens is it shows itself in your performance. In team sports, there are times when you can get away with it because someone else will do the work for you, but if you have too many blokes not at it, it’ll show itself in team sports, and you’ll get a performance where you can be pumped and hammered on the scoreboard, and it’s just not acceptable to do that.”
Last also singled out one key leader in Hull’s recent losing run: Zak Hardaker
“Zak has spoken about being a player that your teammates respected, being a player that someone wants to lace the boots up alongside,” Last added. “He spoke about being an individual that doesn’t make mistakes and being an individual who players want to play with. That’s what we want to be about.”