Ahead of the start of the 2022 Betfred Super League season, one of the questions on many observers' lips was whether opposing teams would have figured out a way to blunt Hull Kingston Rovers' dynamic attacking game.
Even with the caveat of being just two games into a 27-round regular season, a 24-10 defeat at home to Wigan Warriors in the opening round followed by a 26-12 loss away to Huddersfield Giants last Saturday showed the Robins they will have to evolve their approach this time around.
Rovers are back at Sewell Group Craven Park on Friday night when they host another team aiming to chalk up their first win of the campaign in Castleford Tigers, live on Sky Sports, and half-back Jordan Abdull is aiming to produce more of the aspects shown in the closing stages against the Giants.
"Every team is trying to slow us down a little bit, but it's a good tactic for teams to slow down us," Abdull, who earned his first England Test cap against France last year on the back of his starring role for Rovers in 2021, said.
"We've got two really dangerous hookers and a strong backfield who carry hard, so teams have come up with a formula to try to go away from our strengths and we need to be a bit smarter, get our strengths in different areas of the game and try to make our strong carries in different areas as well.
"The last 20 minutes [against Huddersfield] is what we trained all week to do - play the ball quick, show some fight on the floor and maybe kick early.
"It's just a shame it took us 60 minutes to do that otherwise we could have seen a different scoreline against Huddersfield, but we learn from our mistakes and use that last 20 minutes as our formula to play against teams who are trying to slow us down."
One indicator of how teams have got on top of Rovers defensively in the opening two rounds is that their average metres gained per carry is down to 6.67 from 7.18 in 2021. They have only scored four tries so far, too, having racked up the fourth highest in the competition last year with 90.
Head coach Tony Smith is concerned how Huddersfield were able to exert greater control over the play-the-ball than his side last Saturday, stifling their ambition of keeping play going quickly, but is enjoying the challenge of figuring out how to keep his side surprising opponents with an unpredictable attacking game.
"Their control of the speed of the play-the-ball was far greater than ours and I totally get why teams would see that as a concern, but we need to be able to deal with that," Smith said.
"We need to be able to find ways of making sure we get our strengths taken care of and compete at the right sort of levels. Unfortunately, in the last two games we haven't been able to do that.
"We've been looking at, talking about and practising methods of improving in that respect. I think we're a different sort of beast in the drier, firmer, handling months, but we can't wait until then to get moving and play to some of our strengths also.
"The challenge of getting that right, that's part of sport and part of why I coach. That's part of why I like working with young men who are similar-minded and want to solve some things, get better and improve, and we'll certainly do that."
It is, of course, not lost on Smith that Rovers were beaten in their first two games of 2021 before embarking on the run which took them all the way into the top six and within 80 minutes of a place in the Grand Final.
Abdull is mindful that their season will not be defined by those two games either, although he recognises both he and the team as a whole need to find some consistency in their performances - and there is no better place to start than Friday's clash with Castleford.
"The first two games don't determine your season, but it's not the best habit to start the season with if every year you're going to lose your first two or three games," Abdull said.
"It's not a positive start to the year, but we've definitely shown we've got character within our group to turn it around.
"Even in the two games we've played this year, we've been losing by 20 points both games and we've somehow clawed our way back into it and even been getting opportunities where the scoreline could go our favour towards the end.
"As much as it hasn't been the best start, we can still take positives from it."