It’s make or break for Hull FC this week.
Billie Jean King once said, ‘Pressure is a privilege,’ and that’s the mentality Hull FC head coach John Cartwright is taking into his side’s last two games of the Super League season.
Having it all to do, Hull must defeat both Warrington Wolves and Catalans Dragons and then hope that Wakefield Trinity slip up in order to finish in a play-off place. It’s a tall order in normal circumstances, but then add in around a dozen player losses to injury and suspensions and it becomes even more so.
But that fact doesn’t faze Hull’s Australian frontman, who is embracing the challenge and who still believes the team he will field on Saturday has enough to get the job done and take one giant leap into what, all things considered, would be a remarkable finish.
Speaking ahead of the clash, Cartwright said: “At the end of the day, you’ve got to love a challenge and we’ve got to win two games. We can’t feel any pressure and I don’t feel any pressure.
“This (the business end of the season) is why you do it and why you play. Yeah, we’d love to be first and sitting on top of the ladder, but we’re not and we’re fighting. But you have to enjoy it – if you don’t enjoy it, you won’t find success, and if the opposition sees you’re a bit scared, that’s not a good message to send.
“I’m truly loving every minute of it and the fact we’ve got two games to go and we’re still alive and we’re still confident we can win them. If that’s good enough to make the six, then so be it, and it’s not; we’ll move into next year with a level of confidence that probably wasn’t there twelve months ago.“
Taking the play-off race to the final round would be just reward for a Hull side that has battled and battled this year. Showing incremental improvement, the team have been night and day from where they were last year, and while they’ve lost games they feel they should have, they believe the fact they’re still alive and kicking is a real testament to them – especially given the decimating nature of the squad right now.
But Cartwright believes that fact has also toughened up his side and certainly made them more gritty. He continued: “As the season rolled on, I was really confident that we were good enough to be a top six team. I think we’ve managed situations really well, especially over the last ten to twelve games – there are a lot of games where we really had to dig deep to come up with a result.
“We’ve learnt to struggle and we’ve learnt to deal with some really tough situations. That’s a really good thing to have in the bank, both for the next couple of games and moving forward for next year.
“We’ve certainly lost games that we would have certainly loved to have won, but I think we’ve actually built a bit of grit since then. The tougher the situation, the more they seem to lap it up.
“We’ve had a really hard run over the last month and the only game that got away from us was the Leeds game. We pushed St Helens all the way, we beat Leigh, we beat Wigan, and I believe we were more than competitive against KR the other day. To be able to do that with what’s on the sideline, you’ve got to be gritty – you don’t do those things without being a gritty team.”
And on the Wire clash, Cartwright, depleted or not depleted, has made no second bones about his side’s intentions.
“We’re going out there to win the game and it’s the same again next week,” he added. “We’re really comfortable with the team we’ve got to take on Warrington. There’s a great mix of youth and experience and guys who want to prove themselves.
“We’ve got to expect the best of Warrington – we have to be prepared for that. We’ve just got to bring what was good last week and improve where we think we need to improve. That’s what the week will be about, but if you get certain things right in this game, you just win. We know the importance of it. For us, it is make or break.”