“Great business” – Hull FC fans fume as Tex Hoy helps condemn them to tenth straight loss

Castleford Tigers survived a scare to beat Hull FC and prevent the Black and Whites from landing their first win in Super League since Round Three.

A win would have rounded off a brilliant week off-field for Hull FC after the appointment of new head coach John Cartwright on a three-year-deal starting next season. It’s also been a week that has seen them tie down potential stars of the future such as Logan Moy on deals of the same length.

The on-field success wasn’t forthcoming though despite a late fightback as Craig Lingard’s Castleford side earned a third win in Super League, holding on to win 30-22.

Defeat meant that Hull FC have now lost nine in a row in Super League with a Challenge Cup thumping against Leigh Leopards added in for good measure, and ironically the defeat against Cas was orchestrated by former Hull player Tex Hoy.

Hoy gets revenge on Hull

It was a terrible start for Hull FC as Brad Fash was subbed for a Head Injury Assessment and whilst the forward would go on to pass it, that wasn’t before Simon Grix’s side were two tries down through Liam Horne and the impressive Hoy.

Both tries were started via breaks from inside the Tigers half with Cas living up to their ‘Classy Cas’ tag, however, FC did manage to stem the flow before pulling one back. Rowan Milnes then latched onto his own kick before Liam Sutcliff’s intercept try ensured that the Tigers only led 18-10 at the half.

Once again, Castleford started fastest at the restart with tries through right-edge players Jason Qareqare and Corey Hall to seemingly put the game out of sight.

Late scores from Wigan loanee Tiaki Chan and then Jake Trueman made it a nervy finish but Castleford were able to hold on and add more misery to the Hull FC 2024 campaign.

It was of course Tex Hoy’s try that saw fans fume though with his try seeming almost inevitable, however, it was incredibly special too. A break on the right edge saw Hoy released and with just the full-back to beat, the Australian chipped the ball over the top before latching back on to score and double Castleford’s early lead.

At that point, some fans couldn’t help but laugh, whilst others raged with language that can’t be published.

“Great bit of business getting rid of him,” was the assessment of one whilst neutrals joked how the full-back looked like “just the sort of player Hull FC need”.

Hull FC need to “learn faster” as naivety punished

The damage was done for Hull FC early on in both halves with 18 of the 30 points scored within the first ten minutes of each forty minutes and on that, interim coach Simon Grix has called for his side to “learn faster”.

He spoke post-game with BBC Humberside about the need for his team to wise up. explaining that the team “blinked first” when going set-for-set in the first-half.

For Hull FC fans though, there were more brutal assessments of the situation including one that called out all players barring a handful for a lack of “fight”.

They argued: “Apart from Herman, Fash, Trueman and the young lads, nobody showed fight, big Johnny Carts has a big job to do!”

It could still get worse too with Herman Ese’ese set to face an Operational Rules Tribunal on Tuesday night over a ‘verbal abuse’ charge.

On Grix’s note of having to “learn faster”, one fan argued: “Shouldn’t take to the last 15 to come alive however in attack, we look a lot better with Reynolds in it but defensive still needs a lot of improvement.”

Grix had also accused his side of “dipping their toe in” and that was noted by other fans who posted: “Only started playing when it was game over,” and another: “Showed fight at the end but what about the other 70 minutes?”

Another fan was even more cynical, posting: “I thought we might have competed tonight. Sadly I’m wrong. I’m struggling to see what we do between matches except feed stories to the press about 2025.”