Familiar Wakefield Trinity faces ready to greet Hull FC

The Airlie Birds are at Wakefield Trinity Wildcats tomorrow, who are in form and seeking a sixth successive victory.

Part of their obvious improvement is down to the impact of Jacob Miller, the Australian scrum-half released early by Radford at the end of 2014.

They also boast fellow FC players Craig Hall and Reece Lyne while a fourth, Joe Arundel, is only missing after suffering a knee injury against Sheffield Eagles last week.

“Wakefield always seem to have a sprinkling of former FC players which I think helps them in games like this,” said Radford.

“Those players, generally speaking, have some of their best games of the campaign against us.

“They’re tough opposition and this week will be no different.”

That said, Hull welcome back a quartet of influential players – Gareth Ellis, Leon Pryce, Jamie Shaul and Mark Minichiello – as they bid to bounce back after Leeds Rhinos ended their own five-match winning sequence last week. They should really have won at Headingley, too, but botched a series of breaks.

Radford said: “I was critical of our support play against Leeds and I stand by that. But I also don’t think we defended great.

“The loss there was the quickest game we’ve been involved in this year, according to our data.

“That was partly down to how inefficient we were in defence and how much we had to scramble. That’s something we need to get right on Sunday.”

The return after illness of Shaul, their energetic full-back, should aid their support play – Radford rates him the best in the competition in that regard – and the coach has urged his side to start well at Belle Vue.

“We’ve been having to come back in contests and that’s not what we want to be doing every week,” he added.