Brett Hodgson has admitted that his Hull FC side are “not there yet” in terms of their development as a squad, but expressed his pride in defeat against Wigan Warriors last night.
The Black & Whites’ unbeaten run at the start of the 2021 Betfred Super League campaign came to an end at the hands of last season’s Grand Final runners-up, going down 16-14 in a tight contest at the DW Stadium.
And although not disheartened by the defeat, Hodgson explained in his post-match interview that there is still work to be done for the Airlie Birds to be able to match the competition’s top sides, including the Warriors.
Speaking after the game, Hodgson said: “We lacked a little bit of technical execution in attack at times during the match – we needed to finish our sets a lot better than what we did. But Wigan are a great team and they’re at the top of the table for a reason; we’re still striving to be there so we’ll take plenty for the match and go up against them against next week.
“Staying in the game like we did shows where we are at as a side this season. We’ve asked the playing group to stay in these matches with those high effort levels for eighty minutes. We knew we was going to have to go for the full eighty today, but in the end the better team won.
“We’re trying to improve every single week and evolve as a squad, and today is another example of why we’re still not quite there yet as to where we want to be, but we’re heading in the right direction.”
He added: “I’ll look back at the video and determine whether we were hard done to or not, but the reality is that we walk of losing by two points. We didn’t help ourselves at times.”
Hodgson continued to praise Hull’s defensive efforts despite the result, adding: “We knew that Wigan would throw a lot of attacking shapes at us as a defensive unit. There were a few times we came up short, but for most of the time we held up pretty well, particularly in those last few minutes. Our willingness to continue to keep fighting for each other is pleasing.”
Hodgson also provided an injury update on both Scott Taylor and Carlos Tuimavave, both of whom left the field during the game.
“Scott’s injury doesn’t look great to be honest – his foot is quite sore so we’ll work out what happens with that during the week.
“Carlos got a poke in the eye and developed a bit of a headache so we decided to take them off.”
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