IT’S fair to say that Tony Smith was not a happy man after Hull FC’s 22-0 defeat to bitter rivals Hull KR in tonight’s feisty derby.
The Black and Whites had two men sent off and one in the sinbin with new signing Franklin Pele being red carded alongside Ligi Sao whilst new recruit Herman Ese’ese was also given a yellow card.
And Smith wasn’t impressed by his side’s ill-discipline as he touched upon the disruption suffered before and during kick-off.
“Loads went wrong, some of it before kick-off. We had a bit of illness and that probably disrupted us a little bit before we went out,” Smith said.
“Some of the on-field incidents certainly disrupted us. Losing Joe Cator and having two sent off, I thought for12 men for most of the second-half, I thought the players had a real dig and tried really hard.
“It wasn’t to be tonight and our opposition deserved it. They did enough tonight, we will go back and lick our wounds and get ready for the next one.
“I thought it wasn’t good from a lot of people, we are going to learn from that. We made it hard on ourselves at time and let the emotions get carried away and you can’t do that.
“That’s the beauty of our sport, you have to take care of your emotions and fight hard in the right manner and we didn’t at times.”
Smith also touched upon the hamstring injury suffered by Joe Cator.
“Joe Cator is serious, I’m not sure what level it is but it’s a serious enough. We have a few bumps and bruises and we will have a couple having a rest next week.”
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