Tony Smith has his say on controversial Hull FC red cards

As Hull FC lost to Hull KR in their opening fixture of the 2024 Betfred Super League season, Tony Smith was left to reflect on the defeat.

The Black and Whites were second best but were certainly not helped by their ill-discipline. First, Herman Ese’ese was sin binned for a high shot and then Franklin Pele was sent off for a swinging arm.

Lastly, Ligi Sao was also sent off for direct contact to the head. Speaking on Sky Sports, Head Coach Tony Smith had his say:

“Yeah, I thought it was, I didn’t think it was good from a whole lot of people, you know, and we’re going to learn from that. We made it hard on ourselves at times there and let the emotions get carried away and you can’t do that, you’ve got to, you know, that’s the beauty of our sport. You’ve got to be able to take care of your emotions and fight hard in the right manner and we didn’t do that.”

Willie Peters speaks on Hull FC win

Opposite number Willie Peters also gave his thoughts on his side’s performance in the game. He said:

“Oh, we’re good in parts, in large parts here with our defence. I thought our defence was very good but there’s some more work to do in attack. We fell down to 12 men majority of that game and then a second half and then down to 11 men so to be honest we probably should have put more points on the board but round one you want to be good at your defence and I thought we were tonight.”

He also spoke about Man of the Match Mikey Lewis: “Yeah I think he is, he’s grown so much in the past year. Obviously I saw a massive growth in him when he got out of the England camp. I’ve said it before, obviously being on the short wind and the senior leaders in that group was great for him. He’s grown a lot off the field and you can see that he’s grown on the field. So I believe he’s only scratching the surface and it’s exciting that he’s with us for another four years.”

On Lewis’ new responsibilities, Peters added: “Yeah, I think he needs it. I think, you know, obviously we don’t really have an organising heart for such so Mikey’s taken on more responsibility of that and that’s probably where, you know, our attack sort of, you know, we weren’t great tonight because we probably didn’t have the direction we needed but what we’re good at is, as I said, is our defence and our kick chase. Like his kicking game tonight I thought was very good so I’m really pleased for him with that.”