All games are deemed as tough games, but when you have your coach telling you that he is pleased with the way you stepped up as a unit following a game, you know things are going well – as Warrington Wolves coach Tony Smith praised his players, giving them plaudits for standing up when they needed to.
Warrington, who were still without stand-off Lee Briers, were relying on Michael Monaghan to get them over the line and he did so, producing a second-half display that had Smith very pleased with the veteran half.
“We felt like we were a little bit off the pace that we like to play at in the first half,” said Smith.
“That can happen in games but that’s not taking anything away from Hull. They threw some things at us and both teams defended fairly well.
“Sometimes, when you sit on the bus for a couple of hours, you don’t have the same energy, and we had the first-half blues.
“Somebody had to lift it a bit because it was so evenly matched. I like the fact that we could tough it out and lift it when needed.
“I thought there were some real stand-out performers today, Michael Monaghan was back to some of his best play. Not everything came off but he was dangerous, he was running, and he was pulling some strings for us.”
For Hull, coach Peter Gentle was left disappointed with the result, knowing full well that in order to win games, his side have to play for the full 80 minutes, not 60 – as a result, it cost them the game.
“We’ve got to string an 80-minute performance together. We are still only putting 60 minutes of footy together at the minute, so we got what we deserved out of it,” said Gentle.
“It’s hard to see the positives at the moment because we are really disappointed. We showed in the first half that we’re capable of matching it with them but to put a 15-minute period in the second half together like we did is unacceptable.”