Tony Smith especially pleased with this element of massive win over Wakefield

Hull FC laid down a marker ahead of the new Super League season yesterday.

In Tony Smith’s second game in charge, they beat Wakefield Trinity 56-0 and after the game Smith was very pleased with the win.

“A lot of things went well for us. Managing that and understanding not to push it, whilst maintaining that level of skill and decision making, as well as the commitment to our defending – I thought all of that was very good,” he explained to the club’s website.

“Throughout the whole game, I thought our players did a really good job of that. And they didn’t get carried away with the situations or with each other.

“We had a really strong start and that was good. That was good in the sense that you don’t want to get a couple of kicks up the backside before you start playing.

“But the really pleasing thing was that we had a fast start and we maintained that.”

He was very pleased with his side’s defence in the second half when Wakefield mounted pressure. Their willingness to play with more caution in the second half also impressed him:

“That’s necessary and that’s how we need to be. You can’t just be good when things go well. You also need to soak up mistakes and defend those mistakes,” he said.

“If you’re able to do that, it enables you to attack with more flair – take more risks. We want to be strong in both of those areas.

“I was pleased with how the players defended today, even with the scoreline the way it was. At half-time, a lot of the talk was about maintaining our level of defence regardless of the scoreline.

“Right after half-time, there was about ten minutes where Wakefield were on our own try-line with back-to-back sets. It just showed the commitment we had to our own line and that’s something for us to build on for the rest of the year.”

Four minutes into the game big Chris Satae got the ball rolling on the back of good work from his front row partner Scott Taylor whose drive and offload led the way for Satae to power over.

Four minutes later and it was 10-0 as new number seven Jake Clifford’s crossfield kick was taken by Adam Swift to score.

10 minutes later and it was a brace for Swift. Again good work from Clifford to find debutant from Leeds Rhinos Liam Sutcliffe who fed Swift for a great finish in the corner. 16-0 after 20 minutes.

Back from injury and Joe Cator was next on the scoresheet. Barely a minute since he came on, he took a lovely Josh Griffin offload – who was playing in the backrow – to score.

It was two tries in two minutes as a high kick forced an error which was taken by Brad Fash who found Jack Brown to score.

Before the break Sutcliffe would crown his debut with a try with the centre showing good feet to carve through and make it six first half tries.

The tries didn’t dry up in the second half either. After the left edge had enjoyed all the joy of the first half a ball from Joe Lovodua saw right winger Darnell McIntosh score.