John Cartwright’s four key fixes to turn Hull FC around in 2025

New Hull FC boss John Cartwright has one of the toughest jobs in professional rugby league on his hands – as he looks to turn the Airlie Birds from basement battlers to title contenders once more. 

It’s been years of systematic failure at the MKM Stadium for the Black and Whites. The club has finished 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th in the past four seasons, and last made the play-offs in 2020.

But, after an off-season of full overhaul, they have a completely clean slate to attack the 2025 campaign; but they still have a lot of things to fix if they want to become serious competitors once again.

Here is a full breakdown of the four key priorities Cartwright needs to attack to flip the narrative at Hull FC.

Keeping the squad together

Hull FC hit the market hard for the 2025 campaign, but we’ve seen this before…

Last year, Tony Smith brought in some heavy hitters to turn the team around: but by the midway point of the season, three of their new recruits along with Tex Hoy were heading out the exit door. They simply cannot afford a repeat of this again this year.

John Asiata, Jordan Abdull, Amir Bourouh, Zak Hardaker, Oliver Holmes, Ed Chamberlain, Jordan Rapana, Aidan Sezer and Cade Cust have all joined the Cartwright show for this season, and add a decent blend of experience and quality to the side, but the former Gold Coast Titans boss will need to ensure they stick around if they stand any chance of having a somewhat successful season. 

Full revamp of their gameplan

Cartwright’s arrival will likely change the game plan anyway, but let’s face it, Hull FC need a serious overhaul of their tactics on both sides of the ball in 2025.

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The Airlie Birds had the second-worst points difference in 2024, finishing with a tally of -566. On top of this, they only managed an average of just 12 points per game and conceded an average of 33 points per game over their 27 league games; and this simply isn’t acceptable for a club like Hull FC.

Their new recruits should go a long way of fixing their issues on both sides of the ball, in particular the Leigh Leopards contingent who have a decent understanding of how each other play, but that is by no means a guarantee of success. You feel they just need to strip everything back to the pure fundamentals of defence and attack to then get them ticking in both departments.

Going back to these fundamentals – which all professional players should have in bucketfuls – should just give them a steady platform to build from and then allow them to add little touches throughout the campaign too as they start to gel together, and eventually lead them to have those killer efforts the best teams are capable of.

Building a run

Whilst it was a shocking campaign on the whole for Hull FC, there were a few positive signs that should please Cartwright coming in. They managed to beat eventual champions Wigan Warriors, as well as Leeds Rhinos and London Broncos, but they weren’t able to back up a win at all.

The wins over Wigan and Leeds in particular could, and probably should, have been catalysts to kickstart their season, but it never quite worked out that way.

If Hull stand any chance of improving in the long run, these sorts of wins need to be turned into a run of wins rather than isolated incidents. If they can piece together a run of wins like Warrington, Wigan and Hull KR have done, that could really give them some confidence for the rest of the campaign.

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They will likely take another scalp again this season, but they can ill-afford a repeat of last year’s ones where they just sat back afterwards. Cartwright needs to find a way of turning one into a run.

Bringing back the fun

Hull’s performances, especially towards the latter end of the season, just seemed devoid of any genuine enjoyment or fun, but this will be something Cartwright needs to bring back around the camp.

This can certainly be excused, considering everything bad that could have happened, did: but the fresh faces around the place should bring a new culture.

We’ve seen how team culture can deliver success too. Wigan Warriors are famed for their culture around the club, and they’ve won seven trophies in three seasons. Elsewhere, Leigh Leopards’ culture was pinpointed as a reason for their shock Challenge Cup triumph in 2023 and Warrington Wolves and Hull KR have also been making strides to improve their culture, which has helped them become serious competitors in Super League.

Teams play better when they enjoy coming to work and when they play with a smile on their face, and now Cartwright needs to get Hull FC smiling again.

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