Tony Smith is confident that his side will continue improving after kicking off the season with a win over Castleford Tigers last time out.
The Black & Whites hung on in front of over 15,000 fans to stave away a late Castleford surge on Sunday, with a quartet of players making their competitive Hull FC debuts.
Their next assignment is a trip to face last year’s Grand Final runners-up, Leeds Rhinos, who suffered a heavy defeat to Warrington in their season opener last Thursday.
But at this early stage of the season, Smith insists that there is still plenty of room for improvement.
“I keep saying it but we’re still finding ourselves. You’ve got new personnel and a new coach – we’re still a long way off where we’re going to be,” he told the media in his pre-match press conference.
“But we’re hoping that where we are at now is good enough for Round 2, hoping that we can come away with a good performance.
“I would like to see a drastic improvement in some aspects of our game – defence being the key to that.”
Tomorrow’s trip to Headingley will be the perfect test for Smith’s side, just five days after their season opener against the Tigers.
Defence is, of course, one of the key areas Smith is looking for his side to improve in.
But he knows that his nephew, Rohan Smith, in the Headingley hot seat will be keen for his side to bounce back themselves.
“I know that Rohan will be trying to spark his players up for this week – not for any other reason than they need to get better,” he said.
“Whether it will be this week or somewhere in the future, time will tell.
“I’m not far from being in the same boat, though. We won in Round One but we’re far from happy. There were some aspects of our game that were terrific, but there were some aspects of the performance that was way off the mark, and that’s my focus.
“My job is to get my team on it on both sides of the ball. The players are tying hard but we just need to be a bit smarter in some areas.”
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