Tony Smith has previewed tomorrow’s Good Friday Derby clash against Hull KR at Sewell Group Craven Park.
The Black & Whites find themselves as big underdogs heading into the traditional Easter weekend battle against the Robins, but will be aiming to upset the bookies and bring the bragging rights back to West Hull, and avenge their opening round defeat.
Looking ahead to Good Friday, Smith said: “Anything can happen. KR are in great form, we’re not in great form. They’re favourites, we’re underdogs. Everybody will tell us that we can’t win there this week. They might be right, but we’ve got to believe we can go there and win, and who knows, we might be right. It’s down to the two teams on the day and how they perform.
“Hopefully, we can get the performance we’re after and upset the apple cart. That’s what it would be. It would be an upset at the moment. We understand that, but it can happen.
“It’s happened before in plenty of derby games and plenty of matches throughout Super League as well. It’s a good opportunity for us to go out and get our game together.”
Smith continued: “We don’t really refer back to previous experiences too much. It’s where we’re at the moment and what we need to do to compete and get a result. We understand they are playing well and we understand that we’re not playing well enough at the moment. Can that change around in sport? Absolutely it can. It can change around in a week. We’re hoping so. We’re training that way and we’re working that way but there are no guarantees to that.
“It’s an opportunity to go out there and get two points again. It is a derby and we understand how important it is in terms of living in this city, and bragging rights, we’d love our supporters to be able to get the bragging rights, we understand all of that. We’ve just got to go about doing our jobs properly and focus on doing it the best we can and working hard together again. That’s been tested in the last couple of weeks and we need to get back to basics.”
On what he hopes to see from his players, he said: “We’ve got to lift our players and their confidence, their work-rate, and their chins off the ground. It’s hard for them at the moment. We’re not looking for sympathy, but we’re going through a tough patch and we’re not handling some of that so well at times.
“It’s just about picking ourselves up and getting back and pulling together and putting in those sorts of efforts that you need as a squad to not have those sorts of defeats and instead come out of the other side. We’re looking forward to when that happens, gaining some confidence, and putting a performance together that we’re proud of.
“We’re working on all of that, and we know that one of the big solutions to any team struggling with confidence is good old-fashioned hard work. We’ll stick to that and we’ll just keep working hard. That’s all we can do.”
Providing an injury update on members of his squad, Smith said: “It’s not a good one for Carlos (Tuimavave). He’s got quite a severe tear in his hamstring. He’s going to be a number of weeks. It’s not a great result for him. We’re feeling for him. It’s been a hard time for him – he’s only just returned from injury and he’s trying to get himself right. We’re feeling for him.”
“Harvey (Barron) has suffered a fracture to his forehead. He’s been to see the specialist. He’s got about a six-week recovery from that. It’s a crack to his skull, basically, and after six weeks he can resume contact, but until then, there’s no contact.
“Joe Cator won’t be too far away.He’ll be back in the next couple of weeks. He’s pretty much on track. Mitch is getting closer and Fashy is on the Ultra-G, today actually, for the first time. He’ll be a number of weeks.
“Jake Trueman is about five weeks away. He’s running on the grass and running well. He’s going through his bits and is on schedule.”
Tony Smith is proudly sponsored by Rowe Freight.
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