“The world’s telling us how bad we are” – Tony Smith fronts up after Hull FC loss

Another round of Super League has seen another Hull FC loss leaving the Black and Whites with just one win in their opening six and head coach Tony Smith has now faced the music.

The loss to Hull KR marked the second derby defeat of the season and at one point it looked like it could be a third straight game conceding 50 points or more with the Robins heading into halftime 28-0 up.

There was some glimmer of hope as Hull FC put 10 points on the board quite quickly in the second forty but the Robins regained control as they went on to win 34-6.

For Tony Smith, it was a loss against his former club, the third of his tenure as head coach at Hull FC and it’s one that has heightened questions about the security of his position.

Sky Sports’ pundits Jon Wilkin and Sam Tomkins spoke at halftime on the immense pressure the impending loss would put on the Australian, and Smith has now somewhat addressed that in his post-match interview with BBC Humberside.

He explained: “We’ve just got to keep working hard and working on gaining our confidence by having some wins within our performances. We haven’t been in great form and the world’s telling us how bad we are at the moment.

“It’s hard for young men and people to feel confident and go out there and do a great job. We’ve got to toughen up. We’ve got to accept some of that and accept the criticism that we’re copping and just face up to it.”

Tony Smith insists that Hull FC players do care

The first-half performance was so bad that it led to a flurry of fans online questioning if the players in fact cared about the performance, with plenty claiming that the performance was a “disgrace to the badge”.

Smith was asked about the notion of players caring or not, something he firmly argued that they did before outlining how the club can show that care and pride to their fans through their performances.

“They care, they care. We all care, we all care. Nobody wants to lose games and lose games badly. Nobody wants to concede a try. It’s just how determined you are to prevent that from happening in the first place rather than sometimes after the fact,” Smith argued.

“You can show how much you care afterwards but you’ve got to prevent it from happening and that’s why we’ve got to get tough. We’ve got to stop it from happening.”

He pointed to Darnell McIntosh’s try-saving tackle as an example of the players caring but many fans would point to the countless missed tackles, particularly for Mikey Lewis’ first-half try.

Smith noted: “I think anybody who could sit through that second half and see the desperation of Darnell, when the scoreline was gone, saving a try in the opposite corner. That’s what good teams do before they get the 28-0 down.

“We’ve got to turn it ourselves because nobody else is going to turn it for us. We’re going to dig in and work our way up. If you’re going to play rugby league and be around in rugby league and last in rugby league, then you’ve got to have that resilience, you’ve got to be tough enough to handle all that and then work hard enough to push through it and you come out the other side and then next thing everybody tells you how good you are. But we’ve got a bit to do before we get to that stage.”

Smith had earlier told Sky Sports that the performance was “not good enough” and underlined the club’s necessity to “get desperate” in their defence to prevent further losses.

That will be easier said than done considering they face a Huddersfield side who have recently put 50 points on them before then facing Leeds Rhinos and St Helens, spelling a worrying April fixture list for Tony Smith and Hull FC.