‘Could’ve been much worse’ – Tony Smith reacts to Hull derby loss

Hull FC head coach Tony Smith has reacted to his side’s dire derby day defeat to Hull KR explaining that the Robins punished his side time after time in the first half.

It was the first half of dreams for Hull KR and one of nightmares for Hull FC as the home side ran in six tries, the only saving grace for Tony Smith and his players was that KR’s kicking woes continued with Jez Litten kicking just two from six.

FC did go on to improve, eventually losing 34-6, as they actually won the second forty but the game was well gone by then and they fell to a fifth Super League defeat of the season in a performance that Tony Smith bluntly told Sky Sports was “not good enough”.

He had perhaps had time to recompose when he spoke to BBC Humberside given that he jokingly kicked off the interview with the response: “it couldn’t have got much worse after half-time,” when asked about the marginal improvement shown.

Incredibly, he then went on to claim that the opening exchanges were quite even before his side “fell way off the cliff” which led to the Robins racking up six tries in that first half.

“I thought it was a fairly solid start from us to the game,” Smith revealed.

“I thought both teams, I think we went toe to toe for a few sets, which was encouraging. It looked like we were going to build a game, but some of our defence just fell way off the cliff, way off, and allowed them to run their plays and they’ve got some very, very good players and that can really hurt you with the ball.

“That’s what they did. They hurt us bad. To come in at halftime at that sort of scoreline was pretty demoralising.”

Tony Smith claims Hull FC need to “get desperate”

Smith continued by explaining how his side will kick on from the defeat, insisting that they must adopt a more “desperate” approach, similar to what they showed in the second half.

Speaking on half-time and the slight improvement, he said: ” You could easily throw in the towel and not go out there and try and fix things up. So, on that account, that’s encouraging. The 28 points before that, to get to that point, to really get desperate, we’re going to address that. We’re going to get really desperate with our defence earlier in matches and with better score lines.”

Desperation was certainly the buzzword of the day as Smith continued to explain what FC needed to do to remedy their problems, whilst also adding that his side is still a team in transition that is learning.

“In defence, you’ve got to be desperate,” Smith claimed.

“You’ve got to be desperate not to concede, desperate not to allow breaks, desperate to get the ball. You’ve got to be urgent and desperate. Of course, we’re not in great form, so we’ve got to make sure that we’re working hard for one another. Get desperate to help each other. That’s the game of rugby league. We’re still learning how to do that with each other.”

Prior to kick-off, Sam Tomkins had highlighted that he felt the FC players had shown a “lack of desire” in games this season, which could be what Smith was referencing in terms of the need to be more desperate.

Tomkins had said: “You look at the ease that Leigh Leopards had scored some of the tries against them and it was amateurish defending. As a player, as a team, you never want to be questioned on your desire. It looks like to me, in some games, they’ve given up,”

As such it should be argued that a positive to take is that FC didn’t roll over after half time but as Tony Smith said himself, the 28 points before that point also need to be addressed if the club are to try and right this run of form.