Tony Smith has reflected on his side’s defeat to Huddersfield Giants on Saturday afternoon.
The Black & Whites continued to find themselves out of form, going down 56-22 to Ian Watson’s side on a forgettable afternoon at the MKM Stadium.
Speaking after the game in his post-match press conference, Smith said: “This is hurting everybody right now. It’s horrible when you’re in this part of your career and your development. It’s tough at the moment, really tough, and I feel for all of those people out there who truly support us.
“I feel sorry for the boys who are ripping in and doing everything they can. I feel for the guys who aren’t able to pull their weight in the right way, I feel for them, as I know they’d really like to, but until we all get in good enough form to be able to compete at this level, you’re not going to get the results. It’s getting everybody in good enough form to do that. How do we do that? Well, we might have to try some different ways.
“Are my messages sinking in? For sure. Some are just able to do it better than others. Are you asking me whether they are on board with me? I believe so. Am I on board with them? Yeah.
“There are a couple where I’m questioning whether they can do what we need them to do. Some of them may have to go and rebuild their game in reserve grade and rebuild their confidence. We may need to rebuild them in all sorts of ways; both physically and psychologically. The rest of us; we all need to toughen up, get on with the hard work and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Smith added: “I’ve been through each of the teams that I’ve coached and it’s horrible, nobody likes it or enjoys it, but it is a part of what you want to do if you’re going to be successful. You’ve got to go through some of the pain and develop some resilience and toughness.
“It’s not very very taught nowadays so when some of these things get tough, we tend not to toughen up and face up to them, and go out there and work hard. We look for excuses and short fixes and they never work. It’s about building resilience and tenaciousness where it’s developed in all of us.
“We’re going through it at the moment, but they’ve got to help themselves too. I’ll help them and I’ll keep helping them along with my coaching staff to help them do some stuff that they need to add to their games and remove the stuff that they need to remove. When they get that mixture right, it’ll be fine, but sometimes it takes time for people to do that, because, as I keep saying, you revert back to what you’ve always done when under pressure.
“Unfortunately, that’s an occurence that is happening to us at the moment and it’s hurting a hell of a lot. If you’re coming to play us at the moment you’re brimming with confidence and my boys are hopeful for a good start so they can get on a roll and get some confidence as we go. Once again, we conceded an early try that straight away stems the flow of anything that you’re building. We need to remove that so we can build into the game. We did put some patches together but they need to be for longer periods.”
Smith continued: “Defence is our problem. We marched down the field and we troubled Huddersfield enough at times offensively. We put some pressure on them and we scored some points. But we just don’t do that as regularly as we need to. If you’re succumbing in defence, you’re not building pressure, you’re reliving it.
“The defensive side of the game has been our focus for a long time and some of them just haven’t got the confidence to do what they want to be able to do, so I’m going to have to find some people who can and will. We’re going to have some hurt and some bumps along the way still before we get right on top of that. We’re at that point where if some aren’t doing it, we’re going to have to find the ones that can.”
Smith did however praise young debutante Logan Moy, who made his first senior appearance for the club from the bench on Saturday.
“He was good. He had a dig. He held his own. He gave us a bit of spark. He got found out a little bit in a couple of tackles but he’s only small and he’s in there having a crack at them. He didn’t shirk away. He gives everything.
“We were happy to give him that opportunity at half-time. He did well and added a fair bit to us.”
Smith also praised Moy’s young teammates Jack Charles and Matty Laidlaw.
“Jack was good in attack. He got targeted a bit in defence. We knew that would happen and he would get a bit of traffic around him. We would have liked to have seen a bit more help around him so he wasn’t pegged as much as he was.
“Matty is another kid in the early stage of his career and he came on and held his own as well. We’re going to have to rely on some of these guys. We had three injuries from last week, so we’re into the junior boys now. I think that’s going to help us and them get some experience. I think we may have a couple of young faces in for the next game as well.”
Tony Smith is proudly sponsored by Rowe Freight.
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