Tony Smith brought his victorious Hull KR players quickly back down to earth as they prepare to take to the sky.
Rovers will go into Friday’s clash with Catalans Dragons in Perpignan, the scene of their play-off semi-final defeat in September, having won 26-16 at Salford Red Devils.
Two tries from stand-off Mikey Lewis, picked out for praise by the coach, helped Smith’s side to a second win of the season which hoisted them to seventh in the standings.
“We’re not patting ourselves on the back and saying ‘we’re all that’,” said Smith, whose side led 18-0 at the break before holding off a spirited Salford fightback.
“We will keep working on aspects of our game, but we were much smarter in how we built things up.
“Sometimes it’s about doing that and being a little conservative in some aspects of play, and we did that well.
“We showed some patience and scored some good points towards the back end of the first half.
“The second half got a little ugly for us at times. We went away from some of the stuff we were doing and helped them get back in the game.
“A little more control would have been good, but we hung in there and came home strongly.”
Smith wants his players to follow the example set by Lewis in the rain at the AJ Bell Stadium on Friday.
“Those conditions suit him and he exploited the pressure that we built. He was going to raise his head and have an influence there,” he explained.
“There are a few others that need to realise they can do some similar stuff to that.
“He’s got some individual brilliance that can really damage teams, but pressure needs to be built for that to happen sometimes.
“It was nice. He finished off a couple of nice things.”
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