Inside Hull FC’s first days of pre-season as John Cartwright sets tone early

Hull FC have only been in pre-season training two days but Jordan Abdull already has a firm grasp on what to expect from John Cartwright. Abdull has made his return to the Black and Whites this week after penning a three-year deal with the club in a move that was announced back in June.

The half-back is one of nine new faces at the MKM Stadium this season, with Jordan Rapana, Aidan Sezer, John Asiata, Zak Hardaker, Oliver Holmes, Cade Cust, Amir Bourouh and Ed Chamberlain joining him in what is something of a new look FC squad. Rapana, Sezer and Asiata haven’t started training with the club just yet, but Abdull is one of those who has, with the half-back and the rest of the Hull squad being put through their paces at the club’s University of Hull training ground.

With training getting underway on Tuesday, the last couple of days have been an opportunity for Cartwright to run the rule over his playing group in person for the first time. However, it’s also been a chance for the Hull FC squad to get a handle on their new head coach, who joins the club after working in the backroom team at Brisbane Broncos and is tasked with making vast improvements on what was a woeful 2024 campaign.

“My first impressions of John are that he’s going to be very fair but very tough as well,” Abdull said, speaking exclusively to Serious About RL. “If you’re not living up to the standards expected then there’s going to be an issue but if you buy in and everyone is on the same page then it’s going to be a good year.”

Speaking about the first few gruelling days of pre-season training with the Black and Whites, Abdull added: “It’s been good, obviously the start of pre-season is always going to be tough but it’s always a nice feeling when you get around a new group of players and you get to know people in a short space of time and build connections early.

“It’s been pretty tough, I can’t lie, and the body is still getting used to the soreness again. It’s been a really positive start and I think everybody has bought in from the start and it’s made the first couple of days really enjoyable to be honest.

“There’s been a little bit of running and testing stuff which is standard. On day one we went straight into some bike testing and wrestle and things like that and normally you don’t start wrestling for the first couple of weeks but we were straight in there. We have two new wrestle coaches who are very well respected in their professions.

“The facilities are really good at the training hub and they’ve brought in a yoga teacher, they’re giving us the tools to get better and we need to buy in and make sure we’re striving to be better individually and collectively. That’s definitely the first two days of what we’ve been doing on the field and in the gym and the other areas that we’ve been doing, it’s showing where want to get to as a club.”

While there has been a lot of work out on the 3G pitch and in the gym, Cartwright has found the time to sit down with the group, set out his expectations and set the Black and Whites’ first-team tasks.

“It’s been mainly team stuff to begin with, just a little bit of on-field, off-field standards and what he expects,” Abdull added when asked about Cartwright’s messages. “As a group, we split up, dissected it and came up with our ideas of what we expect from each other and what we should be doing on and off the field. It wasn’t too dissimilar to what John had said.

“I think it’s important early on to lay down the groundwork of this is what it takes to be a Hull FC player and this is what we expect of each other, this is what the coaches expect.”