A season of progress for Hull, but now it’s about reaching the next level.
The curtain has only just been drawn on Hull FC’s 2025 season, but head coach John Cartwright is already looking for improvements going into next year – with the Australian frontman determined to see his side get to the ‘next level.’
The Black and Whites undoubtedly took strides forward this season with a lot of spirit, grit, and character shown throughout the year and in different circumstances, but for Cartwright, who has also aired his pride at what the team achieved, it’s all about being more consistent.
Ultimately, in and amongst the good, poor results against teams that finished in the bottom four – Huddersfield (twice) and Castleford – proved to be Hull’s undoing in their play-off quest, and it’s those ‘dips’ that the head coach wants to eradicate from his side’s game next term.
Speaking on the year as a whole, Cartwright said: “They’ve shown a lot of character throughout the year. It’s a long, long season, and we’ve had some dips here and there, but the challenge if you want to be a top four team is to make sure those dips don’t go on for weeks or that you don’t have three or four of them throughout the season.
“That all takes time to get to. You can’t flick a switch at it, but we will get there. It’s all about consistency and making sure we win the games that we should.
“The top sides can have players out and still get the wins but at times, we’ve been really stretched with senior players and players that have had to play injured and wounded. They are the things that people don’t see, but we as a club know, and with the season we’ve had and the young blokes we’ve had to blood and getting to know the players already here, it gives me great confidence for any game that we have to play in the future.
“We’ve just got to progress to that next level now. It’s a challenge, but that’s our next challenge: to limit those periods of the season where you lose a few in a row.”
Pushed for one game that really stands out, Cartwright mentioned the Magic Weekend defeat to Huddersfield. He continued: “You’d really do your head in looking for one game – I’m sure every side in the top six has got one or two games they lost that they thought they should have won, in particular against us.
“We were able to come away with some good results against sides that were fancied, but the Huddersfield one at Magic Round was a game we really should have won. We had a man advantage for one minute and then all of a sudden they had a man advantage on the back of our discipline. One thing you can control is your discipline and we were off that day.”
But that doesn’t take the gloss off what has been a season of progress – in fact, it just makes Cartwright hungry for more next year. Coming in from Australia, the Penrith-born coach brought instant improvement to the Hull side. Finishing 11th last term with just three wins to their name, Hull got 15 on the board in both competitions this year, finishing seventh and with the pride in the club restored.
“Any coach that comes in, the first thing you do is look to improve,” the Penrith-born coach added. “I think we did that – but the other thing is you don’t like losing – you want to win and keep winning. The team have shown off how capable they are by winning and again, it’s about kicking on now. We’ll look to do that this off-season.”