Francis Cummins explains Hull FC mentality test as side look for performance growth

Francis Cummins has challenged Hull FC to kick on against Warrington Wolves this Saturday and not just be the team that’s happy to beat a ‘struggling’ Leeds Rhinos side.

The Black and Whites ended an 11-game losing run against the Rhinos last week with the Wire now facing them at the MKM Stadium. And for Cummins, the challenge is simple: don’t rest on your laurels and instead look grow with the same hunger and desire.

The academy coach, who has doubled up as assistant to Simon Grix for the last two months, believes the squad have embraced that challenge this week, returning to training with the right attitude and a spring in their step, while working hard to improve further and fix up areas of their game.

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Speaking to Hull Live, Cummins said: "There's certainly been a few more smiles and cracking jokes this week. It's not easy on a Monday morning when you've lost again, so it’s been a little bit easier. They should walk in that way as well. There's nothing like a win. They got to sing the song but I don't see that they've gone overboard with it. They've come back and knuckled down to training.

"A win just gives you a lift but a lot of things have been pointed out that we need to do better. We've had a look at that and we've put it into practice so we'll see this week whether they think that's the top of the mountain and that'll do us or if we can go again.

"That's professional sport. You set your bars where you need them to be. If we are a team that are happy to get a win against a Leeds team that aren't playing really well, then maybe we deserve to be where we are now, but if we can keep improving and we want more of that, then we'll make sure we do on Saturday."

Facing a different test this weekend, Hull are all too aware of the challenge Warrington, who won both games against the Black and Whites on their home ground this year, pose. However, Hull have identified ways to get at them, with Cummins looking for another strong performance.

"We've not had this this year, but sometimes you play really well and don't win the game,” Cummins added. “You give as much as you can, and you get beat by a better team. I think the worst feeling is when you just don't really get going, and we've had that feeling a little bit this year, for whatever reason.

"Grixy has talked this week about not resting on our laurels. It's not going to come easy. We got over a team that are probably struggling a little bit more than us at the moment, but we need to take that into account and really focus on getting better. We may have rode our luck. We worked really hard for each other, but there are loads of improvements that we need to make. We need to make sure that we're better this week than we were last week. If we are, then we've got a chance again

"We've just got to keep challenging ourselves and make sure that, as professionals, we get better and deliver again. We've got to make sure we're ready to do that, and the challenge is that it's a weekly competition, and you've got to be as good as you can be every week.

"I don't think we've trained badly. There are other times where we've lost our focus, but this week has been good, and I've not seen them think that it's just going to happen. They have to believe it will, though. We've been in today (Wednesday), and we've been looking at things and talking about what we're going to do. The challenge now is to deliver it."

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