The chances of seeing Hull FC in the play offs were ended by Leeds Rhinos last week but losing to Castleford Tigers, who sit 11th in the Super League table, rubbed salt in the wound and had fans asking what went wrong for the Black and Whites.

Speaking after the game Tony Smith explained what went wrong for the Black and Whites.

“From the outset I just thought we just had a lack of composure and probably went about it, started the match in the wrong sort of manner where it just looked a bit panicky.

“When’s the last time Adam Swift put down a sitter? You know, an easy ball or relatively easy for him. Young Davey you can excuse and he’s a young man coming through, but, those sort of errors and we just lacked composure I thought.

“Errors cost us. There’s some games that cost you more. They were costly errors for us. And I thought they were a little bit more desperate at times. They made a lot of errors too. I think they’d admit that they made more errors than they would have liked, but theirs didn’t cost them as much.

“Cas deserved to win by all means, but that’s the best they’ve defended their trial line for some time. They looked like they were fighting for their lives. And to defend your try line, that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to have that attitude. They showed that desperation tonight.

Asked about the effort from the boys, Smith said:

“I don’t think that we didn’t try. It’s just our approach to it, I thought we were a bit panicky and probably a little bit desperate to find that win that’s eluding us at the moment too.

“We’re conscious that we haven’t won and everybody’s telling us that we drop off a cliff each year and that’s the sort of team that we are. So I think my boys would try and desperately go out there and get that win instead of going through the processes.

“This was a place that we needed to get in and arm wrestle and be clean, squeaky clean, and run the ball hard and run direct and it’s a short pitch and you get out of yardage easily and you’re in the opposition’s half.

“We just didn’t take any of that into account today. I think we were trying to be flashy early on rather than trying to be smart and direct.

“Maybe some of that pressure of trying to not be that losing team at the back end of the year he got to us, but Cas had that desperation of, they know they’re in it for survival at the moment, not just that they might cop a ribbing from their own.”