Simon Grix has reflected on his side’s defeat to Warrington on Friday evening.
The Black & Whites went down 24-6 on a wet night at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.
Grix started his pre-match press conference by expressing his happiness to see Jake Trueman return to action after his long-term injury lay-off.
“It’s been a bit of a week for him, getting back on the field. But I thought he threw himself into it and did some pretty good stuff. He showed some classy touches. There were a few nice passes in there and obviously, there was the try assist for Tom at the end.
“He showed a bit of rust as well. We don’t expect him to come in and be absolutely flying right away. It’s going to take him a bit of time to get back in the rhythm but he showed some positive signs tonight that will do his confidence the world of good.
“We were unsure whether to start him but we went with the bench option to limit his game time to ease him back in. He’s done the work, it was more of a mental thing. There is a strong chance he starts next week.”
The match also saw Tom Briscoe make his second debut for the club, who touched down for his 91st Hull FC try on the night.
“Tom was good. He came up with some backfield carries for us. He would have liked a few more. They were kicking away from him on purpose, I think, to keep him out of the game, but I thought he did some good stuff there.
“It’s having him around this week, just his chat, he’s experienced talking through the game. It’s that small talk, you’re not going to hear it in the stands but it is there and it does make a difference to his edge. He’s a really handy pickup for us. We know how good a player he is but at the moment, he is still finding his way in a new team. With some more familiarity around him, we’ll see even more from him.”
On the performance from the team as a whole, Grix added: “The effort was good again. We scrambled pretty hard. It’s not nice to be on the end of the losing side of it. We play to win and we’re playing towards that, I think. We’re showing some positive signs. There is some pleasing stuff in there.
“Some individuals let us down on occasion, just some little clock-offs, probably not used to being in that contest where it is a bit of grind and we’re going for set-for-set, but if we tidy them up and take our opportunities, then it may look a bit different. I do think we’re heading in the right direction, but to be honest, I thought the 1, 6, 7, and 9 of Warrington just had a bit too much for us.
“They came up with some plays that separated us at times, but other than that, I thought we were in it and we came up with some good stuff. It just wasn’t enough and we again made some errors early in sets when we were in decent field position.
“We don’t have enough to squander those opportunities. We need to be a bit better but we’re learning, you can see that in our performances. We’ll take a bit out of that and move on to the next one.”
Simon Grix is proudly sponsored by Rowe Freight.
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