Jon Wilkin on ‘car crash’ Hull FC as ‘disgustingly bad’ season torn apart

Jon Wilkin has described the 2026 season for Hull FC as a ‘car crash in every sense’, with the decision to part ways with John Cartwright highlighted as a destabilising incident.

The Black and Whites have won just five games in Super League, only two more than their worst-ever campaign back in 2024 and whilst this is of course a better return, it’s been a huge let down on what was expected.

John Cartwright took charge of Hull FC in 2025 and led them to seventh as they narrowly missed the play-offs and that sparked hope that they could be a top six side in 2026, possibly even pushing higher.

Instead, they’ve been torrid and whilst injuries have certainly played their part, it has to be said that Hull FC have taken a major backwards step and Jon Wilkin hammered that point home when speaking on Sky Sports on Friday night, 24 hours after the club’s loss to bottom-of-the-table Huddersfield Giants.

“Well, it’s a car crash in every sense,” Wilkin said when asked to assess the club’s season.

“If they were a company with shareholders, their stock price nearly doubled under John Cartwright, they went from 11th to 7th.

“Now, it’s regressed by 50% again. That’s almost not acceptable in a business sense but in a sporting sense, it’s almost acceptable.”

No punches pulled as Hull FC disastrous season assessed

Wilkin would point to Cartwright’s ‘ousting’ as the major turning point, with Hull FC having actually won three of their eight Super League games under the Australian, whilst they’ve won just two of 13 since.

“To destabilise your club by ousting John Cartwright, who may not have been the right guy, I’m not close enough to say whether John Cartwright was the coach, but when they got rid of him, there was animosity from the fans,” Wilkin said, before being corrected that Cartwright had been offered to stay for the season but his own outspoken presser brought about his swift exit.

Continuing, Wilkin said: “It was a PR disaster, wasn’t it? The process is the process. John Cartwright then held all the cards and came out with a strong press conference that rendered his position untenable, right?

“I think there’s lots of learning to be done. I think the fans of Hull are incredibly patient because they’ve had some low points, I think York Knights defeat by one point in the early rounds of the year was probably a low point but little did we know that it was probably going to bottom out and get lower than that.”

Despite winning their first game under Andy Last’s coaching, the club have lost 11 of 13 under his interim charge, including their last seven games with defeat to Huddersfield on Thursday another low point in a torrid season.

“It’s been a shocking year, like, disgustingly bad for a club that we were talking about pushing on into the playoffs,” Wilkin stated.

“Just wow. From 7th, and it was like last game of the year (push) to be in the playoffs last year. We were saying if they stay healthy, they’ll push into the playoffs. We had them in the playoffs, a few of our pundits, and it’s just a wildly bad season.”

With Steve McNamara taking charge in 2027, the club will need far more than a coach change to even be close to a position where they can be considered play-off challengers with Hull FC last making the top six in 2020.