Hull FC head to St Helens on Friday night.
Simon Grix is predicting Hull FC’s top six battle to go right down to the final round of the season with plenty of ‘twists and turns’ to come.
The Black and Whites hold a one-point lead over seventh-placed Wakefield Trinity, who face Wigan on Sunday, with Grix challenging Hull to keep ‘putting their head down’ and get on with the task in hand.
Defeating Leigh last week in an MKM Stadium humdinger, Hull now face another big clash against St Helens on Merseyside. But despite some tough injury blows this week, including John Asiata and Will Pryce, Grix still believes Hull have a ‘pretty handy team’ and one that will give it everything.
“With five games to go, we sit sixth,” Grix said ahead of the clash. “That tells you it’s still in our hands. We’ve got some tough fixtures but if you look through every team, they’ve all got tough fixtures in and amongst it.
“Like most rugby league seasons, there are a lot of twists and turns. We’ve just got to put our head down, keep plugging away, and see where that gets us. Round 27 might be an interesting one this year. It might go down to that and we’ll keep fighting towards that.”
And on Friday’s challenge, Grix continued: “Saints are in great form. They’re a big physical team that often overwhelms their opposition. We have to stand up to that physical part of the game and then play smart.
“They are physical with and without the ball and they pose a lot of challenges and a lot of threats across the field. They’ve got a great team but I reckon we’ve got a pretty handy team as well and we’ll take a lot of confidence out of the week just gone. We’re looking forward to getting over there on Friday and seeing how we go.
“We know what to expect with them, but our competitive nature that we’ve nurtured from pre-season gives us a chance in any game. We’ll get ourselves going and see where it takes us.”
As well as showing grit and resilience, Hull know they have to play smart and avoid the poor ball control that was their undoing in the home clash back in June – a 13-6 defeat.
Grix added: “My memory from the home game was that we were really poor with our ball control and against a team like Saints, you can’t give them cheap possession and field position.
“With that overwhelming style they have, they can outgrind you and get on top of you fast. We hung in there last time and they got us near the end, but for us, looking after the ball is the big one and then keep defending for each other like we have been.
“If you take it late (in the game), you can then see what you can come up with, and hopefully we can have Lewis (Martin) adding another one to his list.”