PETER Gentle has called on his Hull FC players – and the club's fans – to be at their best tonight in a game he says is the toughest of them all.
Labelling Wigan the benchmark for all Super League sides, Gentle is well aware of the task ahead for his team, and he's eager to see the KC Stadium atmosphere as vibrant as possible to help inspire his troops.
Hull head into the game with the Warriors on the back of a four-game winning run and Gentle is confident his team can stretch it.
But to do so he says it will take the very best his players have to offer.
"Wigan are the best team in the competition for a reason, they do everything right," Gentle told the Mail.
"It is going to be very difficult and we will need to be at our very best. We'd like our supporters to be at their best too in being the noisiest and loudest they can be, and hopefully we can give them something to cheer about.
"We believe we can win the game, but we know anything short of our best and we won't get the result.
"Wigan are the stand-out team, they are the benchmark and at the moment we are all fighting to catch up with them. It's our shot tonight to see how close we are to them."
Hull currently sit eighth in the league ladder, seven points behind Wigan at the top.
The Black and Whites are however just three points off the top four position they covet.
Gentle says his side have been helped by the results of others, but now he's looking for his team to take the matter into their own hands.
He said: "Everyone else is doing us a favour by beating each other and keeping us close to the top. We are still not that far away from the sides behind Wigan, but we haven't been convincing while winning and we are still a long way from where we want to be."
