Hull FC interim coach Andy Last has refuted claims that the club are ‘unfit’, as suggested by former player Paul Cooke on a recent podcast.
Cooke, who played for both Hull FC and Hull KR, is among the most respected pundits in the game and his word carries more weight when it comes to teams in the city of Hull, which made his comments about the Black and Whites’ fitness all the more stinging.
Speaking in the aftermath of the derby day defeat when appearing on the Back10 podcast, Cooke argued: “Hull FC had an inability to stay in the game and by that I mean their fitness levels and concentration levels.
“Hull FC are full of shortcuts as players. You look at them and they’re unfit. I don’t know what they did in pre-season, but if I were the coach of them, I’d have them in seven days a week because they’re not fit enough.”
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Andy Last disagrees with ‘unfit’ Hull FC comments
When speaking to BBC Radio Humberside on Wednesday, Last disagreed with the suggestion that they are unfit and instead offered a different reason why his team may be falling short in games.
“No, I wouldn’t say so,” Last responded, adding:”I think that’s momentum in the game.
“I think the new rules, momentum can change very, very quickly and when the momentum goes against you, it’s very hard to get it back.
“You watch NRL games and once a team gets momentum, before you know it, it can be 50 points and you’ve lost the game. I think that’s something that us as a team and I think generally in Super League, all teams are finding when an opposition has the momentum, it’s very, very difficult to grab it back.
“When you’ve got the momentum, it’s really important that you concentrate and don’t be that person who makes the error which takes the momentum from you and gives it to the opposition and then likewise, you’ve just got to bite down on your gum shield a little bit harder when the team has the momentum against you and find a way to grab it back and grab it back quickly.”
One of the players who Cooke would single out was forward Herman Ese’se, citing a number of incidents in the derby where he felt the prop erred, even stating that he was not defending his line with ‘will and want’.
Asked about Ese’ese, Last offered a defence, stating: “It’s his first long-term injury, lower limb injury, Achilles injury. By nature obviously Herman’s a big guy so it’s taken him probably a little bit longer than he probably expected to come back from that injury but he’s working away obviously in the background.
“It is a very, very challenging game but he knows obviously what he needs to work on and he’ll certainly do that and he’ll be better moving forward.”
