The five-eighth was in hospital with pneumonia on Tuesday, and didn't decide he was fit enough to take his place until Saturday, but didn't look out of place despite his tough week in their 38-12 loss to Young on Sunday.

"I've been crook for like five weeks and just went to hospital on Tuesday, just for the day though," Herring said.

"It's been no good."

New Kangaroos coach James Smart was impressed with his effort just to make it onto Equex Centre.

Herring is hoping for some smooth sailing heading into a clash with Southcity in round two.

"It was a tough first hit out and we tackled a lot as we didn't have much ball but that's just the way it goes," he said.

"There was just too many mistakes for us to start with and then we were just too tired

Smart knows there is plenty to work on, particularly in attack, but wants his new-look side to take plenty out of the loss to one of the competition favourites.

Especially with Bowie Foster (hooker) and Jake Mascini (centre) putting in some good performances in new positions.

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"I thought there was a 20-minute period there in the first half where we traded set-for-set with them, started to feel that momentum swing a little bit and really started to see some opportunities," Smart said.

"Our attack wasn't great but I didn't expect it to be coming in without a trial so there are some positives to take out of it.

"Obviously there is a lot to work on but as a first-up performance I was happy with the effort the boys put in.

"It is just a matter of now learning from that, turning up to training and working hard so we can start to turn things around."

The scoreline blew out late, to take away some of Kangaroos' impact and ahead of a clash with Southcity, who received a forfeit from Junee to start the season.

However Smart is looking for a bigger defensive effort at Harris Park on Sunday.

"There were some lapses in concentration in defence and one thing we spoke about was that we know they (Young) are a big side and trying to keep our defence as tight knit as we can but it was disappointing to see them go through us on a few occasions," Smart said.

"They are the things we know we need to be really good as a team, as we aren't as big as some of the other teams in the competition. That is one thing that sticks out and across the board our talk really started to drop off in that last 20 minutes and then started to put on a few tries but to the boys' credit in the first 15 minutes we were just on the back foot non stop and could have easily shut up shop and let them run all over us but we turned things around and got a bit of momentum coming our own way.

"They (Young) are a serious footy team, we knew that coming in, and while we've got a lot of work to do hopefully coming into the back end we can be putting it to those top teams."

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