Re: Challenge Cup - York Acorn : Sat Feb 08, 2025 7:22 am  

Captain Dave wrote:

Hull should win by 70 plus points today.

Unlikely given the young side but a chance for them to impress Cartwright.

Re: Challenge Cup - York Acorn : Sat Feb 08, 2025 8:49 am  

ComeOnYouUll wrote:

Unlikely given the young side but a chance for them to impress Cartwright.

Acorn are a mid table NCL side , I can see Hull posting that 70 plus score and getting a record away win even with only a limited number of first team players selected.

The amateur teams facing SL opposition are all just hoping to keep the score down.

Also Acorn have had very limited gametime too, I don't think the NCL season has started yet.

Re: Challenge Cup - York Acorn : Sat Feb 08, 2025 8:53 am  

Don't care how many we score today as long as we get some more miles in the legs and most importantly no injuries.

[Mild Rover]

Re: Challenge Cup - York Acorn : Sat Feb 08, 2025 10:34 am  

There’s very little evidence on which to guess what the gap will be. I think I saw something saying that this will be Hull’s first game against a community team in 27 years.

If you’d have put out your first team, it’d have been one-way traffic, check the all-time records book. It still might be. At first, when I saw the squad, I thought it might be interesting to see how so many of these kids go in one team. But you’d probably learn more from any given Reserves game - it just feels different because this is officially a first-team match.

Stab in the dark, I’ll say 20 by half-time, 60 by the end.

Re: Challenge Cup - York Acorn : Sat Feb 08, 2025 10:49 am  

Yippee try yay wrote:

Don't care how many we score today as long as we get some more miles in the legs and most importantly no injuries.

Correct. I totally get why they would set the bar as high as possible so they can later claim we underperformed but a good run out and no injuries matters more than the margin of victory. Points difference doesn't matter in the Cup.

Re: Challenge Cup - York Acorn : Sat Feb 08, 2025 10:52 am  

ComeOnYouUll wrote:

Correct. I totally get why they would set the bar as high as possible so they can later claim we underperformed but a good run out and no injuries matters more than the margin of victory. Points difference doesn't matter in the Cup.

That's exactly what they're doing, if we only win by 30-40 they can come on here and say well we beat proper York by more than you did amateur York blah blah blah it's so predictable.

[Mild Rover]

Re: Challenge Cup - York Acorn : Sat Feb 08, 2025 11:13 am  

Yippee try yay wrote:

That's exactly what they're doing, if we only win by 30-40 they can come on here and say well we beat proper York by more than you did amateur York blah blah blah it's so predictable.

To a degree, yes, of course.

It depends, as well, on whether you go with the strongest 17 from the 21. Rotating a middle of Ashworth, Aydin, Asiata, Fash and Salabio against amateurs would be absolutely crushing. It makes me think, on reflection, that 60 might be pessimistic from a Hull FC perspective.

30-40 is just setting expectations in the other direction. Unless you include all the kids with the higher-30s squad numbers named in the 21 and get a man sent off early, there’s about as much chance of it being only a 30-point margin as there is of me beating stockfish at chess.

Re: Challenge Cup - York Acorn : Sat Feb 08, 2025 11:28 am  

Mild Rover wrote:

To a degree, yes, of course.

It depends, as well, on whether you go with the strongest 17 from the 21. Rotating a middle of Ashworth, Aydin, Asiata, Fash and Salabio against amateurs would be absolutely crushing. It makes me think, on reflection, that 60 might be pessimistic from a Hull FC perspective.

30-40 is just setting expectations in the other direction. Unless you include all the kids with the higher-30s squad numbers named in the 21 and get a man sent off early, there’s about as much chance of it being only a 30-point margin as there is of me beating stockfish at chess.

I imagine most of the 1st teamers named in the squad will play, Asiata is starting and captaining the team but I can see him and Cust being withdrawn by half time. But as I said earlier I couldn't care less if we win by 10 pts or 100 as long as no one picks up any injuries especially with the extra travel time to get to Catalans.

Re: Challenge Cup - York Acorn : Sat Feb 08, 2025 11:48 am  

Mild Rover wrote:

To a degree, yes, of course.

It depends, as well, on whether you go with the strongest 17 from the 21. Rotating a middle of Ashworth, Aydin, Asiata, Fash and Salabio against amateurs would be absolutely crushing. It makes me think, on reflection, that 60 might be pessimistic from a Hull FC perspective.

30-40 is just setting expectations in the other direction. Unless you include all the kids with the higher-30s squad numbers named in the 21 and get a man sent off early, there’s about as much chance of it being only a 30-point margin as there is of me beating stockfish at chess.

I do agree with most of that. Hull are in a bit of a no win situation. Win by 30 and we get laughed at. Win by 100 and nobody cares because it's just an amateur team. No injuries is really what I'm bothered about today. As for a prediction, I'm going something like 90-6. But it depends how hard we go at it and how long our first choice forwards are on the pitch.

[Mild Rover]

Re: Challenge Cup - York Acorn : Sat Feb 08, 2025 11:49 am  

Yippee try yay wrote:

I imagine most of the 1st teamers named in the squad will play, Asiata is starting and captaining the team but I can see him and Cust being withdrawn by half time. But as I said earlier I couldn't care less if we win by 10 pts or 100 as long as no one picks up any injuries especially with the extra travel time to get to Catalans.

I agree it isn’t very meaningful. It’s just a curiosity. If it is 100+, well it is pros vs amateurs, maybe let’s not do this again next year, but check to see if there are any records that need updating.

If everything that could go wrong (sickness bug, very rusty, atrocious weather, bomb numerous chances, man sent off) goes wrong then at least you have got lots of bad luck out the way in a game you couldn’t lose. Tomlinson could probably spin a triumph in adversity narrative out of it.

That’s the point really - we all get to build our own stories out the same set of events. This is just our rough notepad for establishing our outlines.