Hull FC interim head coach Andy Last has hit out at his side after their surprise 12-4 home defeat against Toulouse Olympique, with the French side landing their first win since round two of Super League.
Two early tries from Olly Ashall-Bott and former Hull FC man Joe Cator gave Toulouse a shock 12-0 lead and despite pulling one back through Tom Briscoe, the Black and Whites were unable to draw level as they went scoreless in the second half despite dominating the territory.
That opening period in which Toulouse took the lead was one of the big frustrations for Last who pointed to the player’s attitude not being right compared to the Olympians.
“A very disappointing result and a disappointing performance,” Last assessed when speaking post-match on Sky Sports.
“We spoke all week about attitude, and for the first 20 minutes I thought Toulouse delivered a performance that was full of attitude and we just didn’t start the game well. When you don’t start the game well, you give the opponent hope, and that hope turns to confidence.
“We conceded a couple of soft tries and then we just couldn’t get our game on. We had lots and lots of good ball field position in that second half, but our spine just couldn’t seem to get off the same page, and we lacked a little bit of fluency.”
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Hull FC coach urges consistency after shock defeat
That lack of fluency was predominantly a spine struggle and Last pointed out how strange that was given the fact his side had scored 50 points only one week ago.
He said: “It’s very, very strange, because we were very confident, we scored a lot of points last week, but that confidence obviously drained away very quickly. There’s a lot of work to do, a lot of stuff to look at, and we’ll look to obviously improve for the Bradford game in a couple of weeks’ time.
“Credits to Toulouse who defended their try line resiliently and they moved well and made it difficult for us but we need to be better than that. Our spine needs to own that and we need to be better and improve before we play against Bradford.”
Last also remarked on the stop-start nature of the game further preventing Hull FC from building any fluency, however, he ultimately had to admit that his side are just too inconsistent.
“That’s probably us. We’re very inconsistent. It was a game I was nervous for before the match, we spoke all week about the attitude being right, and we felt that we prepared well, but quite clearly we didn’t get the performance.
“I spoke to the guys before the match about, don’t think by having a good week’s preparation you’re going to play a solid game, it’ll give you an opportunity to play a better game, but I just didn’t think we were be able to do that today.”
Looking ahead, he said: “We need to be performing better, and like I said, we’ll be back to the drawing board, working hard during the week and making sure that we do what we need to for Bradford.”
A massive result for @TOXIII 👊#SuperLeague pic.twitter.com/rqVHan5RH3
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) May 3, 2026
