Josh Griffin left 'shattered' by red card as Hull FC boss Tony Smith addresses incident

Griffin, who scored Hull's opening try in the 32-18 defeat, was sent off in bizarre circumstances at half-time after confronting referee Chris Kendall in the aftermath of a penalty on the stroke of the interval.

The veteran back-rower was initially shown a yellow card which became red as he continued to remonstrate with the official.

“Josh is pretty shattered in there," said Smith.

"He’s seen some of the consequences of what his team-mates had to go through and that would be hard for him.

“We have rules in place and our game is about discipline and there are ways you can question referees and ways you can’t so if he’s done something wrong then he’s got to pay the price for it and so do we.”

The teams went into the break locked at 12-12 at the end of a fiercely contested first half but Griffin's rush of blood effectively ended Hull's chances of pulling off a surprise victory.

While Smith took positives from a courageous showing, he was critical of his side's discipline and decision-making.

“I’m disappointed with the result but not in terms of effort or spirit," he said.

"I thought we had a real crack at them and were on top of them at times.

“It was an entertaining game but I don’t think we played the smartest game. We didn’t exploit some things we needed to.

“Aside from the sending-off I thought we lacked discipline. Some of the six agains you just can’t afford to have against a team like Saints.

"We gave them a couple of legs up which ultimately cost us but right up until the end I thought we matched them in terms of energy.”