Brett Hodgson has explained his delight an an “almost 80-minute performance” after the Black & Whites put in a dominant performance to defeat Salford at the Totally Wicked Stadium.
Hull made it back-to-back wins at the start of the Betfred Super League season with the convincing 35-4 win.
FC got over the try-line with scores from Josh Griffin, Andre Savelio, Cameron Scott, and a brace from new-signing Josh Reynolds, who made it three tries in two games.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, Hodgson said: “In some ways, I thought that was an improvement on last week.
“We had to work really hard for each other at times, and losing a couple of players as well didn’t help that. The way we stuck together and continued to work hard to finish the job was really encouraging.
“I don’t want to compare Salford with Huddersfield, but we knew we would be okay if we performed at the levels we want to ourselves. I thought in the first half we didn’t finish a couple of opportunities and tried overplaying, but the fact we scored late in both halves was really pleasing.”
He continued: “If anyone offered me 2 -0 at the start of the season I’d have definitely taken that. There are areas we know we need to improve but I’m pleased with the way we’ve started.
“It was an almost 80 minute performance. The way we started the first half was with really good defence but we tried to overplay our hand and get cheap points at times during the first half.
“You always have to earn the right to get over the try line. Once we got into the grind and settled down I thought we were really good but there were areas we needed to work on.
“There’s no doubt there’s some attacking threat and potential in this team, which I knew when I came into the job. However, we have to earn the right to play and score points, from the thirty minute mark we started to get the mix right and then we saw what happened as a result. We’re still learning things of each other and of our systems, and hopefully we’ll continue to reap the rewards.”
Hodgson hailed some of the individual performances, particularly those of Josh Griffin, and Jacuzzi Elite Performance Man of the Match Jake Connor.
“Jake has improved again, and we’re looking for minor improvements from him each week. I thought he was better today than last week, he was more involved in the middle third with his supports, and stood up when we needed him to.
“I’m not sure what’s in Shaun Wane’s mind with regards to England selection, but I do know that if I was picking the squad he’d be in my side. He’s very talented with ball in hand and his off the ball work is getting better all of the time. He’s definitely a player who would look at home at that level.
He added: “I thought Josh Griffin was one of our best players on the field. He was busy, was strong in his carries and really good going forward. His opposite number in Kallum Watkins is one of those individuals that can hurt you at any time and I thought Josh handled him really well.”
On the injuries sustained during the match, Hodgson said: “Ligi had a high ankle strain, at a pinch we could have brought him back but we thought it best to leave that because we were going forward well.
“Josh Reynolds looks to be a low grade hamstring issue, we’re not sure to what extent but we’ll get it scanned.
“Marc Sneyd got another knock on a dead leg he picked up last week so we didn’t want to push it any further. Fingers crossed they’re not too bad, but we won’t know until we get some more scans.”
Looking ahead to next week’s Betfred Challenge Cup clash against Featherstone Rovers, he added: “We’ll only make changes for next week based on whose available.
“We certainly won’t make changes for the sake of it or underestimate Featherstone. We know, just like today we need to work hard and roll our sleeves up, do the physical stuff and hope we reap the rewards from that.”
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