Hull FC boss Tony Smith 'embarrassed' by 10-try drubbing at hands of Salford Red Devils

Smith enjoyed a promising start to his reign at the MKM Stadium but the wins over Castleford Tigers and Leeds Rhinos are a distant memory after back-to-back heavy defeats.

Fresh from a 38-6 loss to Catalans Dragons in Perpignan, Hull collapsed in familiar fashion in front of their own supporters to underline the size of the task facing Smith.

Salford scored 56 unanswered points after seeing Jake Clifford open the scoring for the hosts inside three minutes.

The boos from the home supporters grew louder as the game went on as Smith's honeymoon period turned sour.

"I'm disappointed, embarrassed – a number of feelings," he said.

"It hurts; if it didn't hurt, you're in the wrong place.

"We need to dig our way out. Our confidence probably isn't high, particularly when we didn't feel like that was coming.

"We're shooting ourselves in the foot with some of our decisions in D as well as our decisions with the ball.

"It's not easy – and nobody said it was going to be easy. Sometimes when you're in professional sport you get kicked around. It's self-inflicted so we need to work our way out of that."

Next up for Hull is a trip to the Totally Wicked Stadium to face world club champions St Helens, who themselves are smarting from disappointing back-to-back defeats.

Smith has challenged the Black and Whites to match Saints' desperation.

"We've got a big scary opponent coming up next week," said Smith. "Somebody has probably poked the bear there.

"We need to make sure we stand up and do a better job than what we did today, that's for sure."