Hull FC keen to avoid unwanted 'blowouts' as squad put focus on key area

Hull FC aren't at the stage of setting season goals just yet, but there are a few simple messages coming from a camp that entered week four of pre-season training on Monday.

Above all else, Hull, after a Super League season that saw them finish in 11th place, just want to be competitive, avoiding the big defeats that have become an unwanted fabric of recent seasons. To do that, there is a focus on fitness and getting in the best shape, both physically and mentally, as they can in order to prop themselves up the Super League table and be a side all connected to the club can be proud of.

That, right now, is the focus, with Jordan Abdull, for one, keen to avoid 'blowout' games next year, instead gelling as a squad and using the next several weeks of training before the trial games and start of the season to get as robust as possible.

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"We've not set targets yet; that's probably something we'll do after Christmas as we're leading into games," he told Hull Live. "I think short-term goals at the minute are for everyone to get as physically good as they can. If everyone is fit and we're gelling as a team, then you're goal going into every game is to win. None of us sign up to lose; there's absolutely no point in playing for a team when you're happy with losing.

"What success looks like could be different in everyone's eyes, but for me, if we're competitive in every game, then we're on the right track. I can accept losing by two points, just as I'd be more than happy to win by 20 points. It's the blowout games that go against you where there's that give-up mentality. I think they're the games you can't stomach as a professional athlete, knowing that you probably all gave up.

"You can do that when you're not physically ready to play, so for me at the moment, the only goal that I'm setting for myself and what everybody should be setting as a team is making sure that we've got all the mental toughness that we can get so that when the season does come, we're challenging in every match that we're playing in."

Hull's first confirmed action of 2024 is on Sunday 12 January, with the reserves heading to Doncaster. The first-team are then in action on Saturday 1 Febraury, with the Challenge Cup kickstarting the competitive season the following week.

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