Willie Peters has explained his decision to rotate 14 players from his 21-man Hull KR squad for the final game of the season, with just a handful of senior players remaining.
Among those is Mikey Lewis who actually makes his return from suspension and he’s joined by fellow regular first-teamers Sauaso Sue and Sam Luckley, in an otherwise very young squad that features several players set for debut.
It’s a similar tactic to the one employed by Peters ahead of the clash against Wigan Warriors, with Hull KR going on to lose heavily without scoring a point, however, that rotation allowed for a refreshed Robins side to easily knock off Huddersfield last week.
Peters is expecting the same, confirming that his side can now have ‘no excuse for fatigue’ when they head into the play-offs next week.
“We just felt that it gives us the best opportunity to freshen things up and give us the best chance for the finals. That’s basically what it’s about for us,” Peters said to the media on Thursday.
“Finishing sixth or fifth, it doesn’t make too much of a difference. That was the thinking behind it, just to freshen things up. It’s been a big season. It gives younger guys an opportunity, but obviously freshen things up for the group that we play next week.”
As for how those who have not been selected this week are faring, Peters admitted that ‘everyone has got niggles at this time of the year’, though he did name-check star man Tyrone May.
“The majority of the squad is getting rested. There are some [injuries] that we need to manage. Tyrone is an example of that, obviously Jesse Sue has played a lot of games. He had an ankle injury but he’s come out the other side.
“There’s a couple but mainly the players are getting rested to freshen up, which we believe will give us our best chance next week.”
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Hull KR boss defends rotation decision that leaves club with ‘no excuses’ for play-offs
Peters had previously had to defend the squad selection against Wigan in which nine players were rotated out, though he explained that only three of those were purely for rest purposes – something he again stated on Thursday as he explained that injury ‘niggles’ do remain in his squad.
He said: “Wigan, as I said at the time, there were three players that we 100% rested… The others had genuine injuries. We just felt that it was best to manage those properly.
“Dean Hadley was one where there was fear that it could be two or three weeks. It was only a week, which was great. Tyrone’s been playing injured, like he played injured last week and he’s still not right.”
Wigan also represented a fourth game in 15 days but he noted: “It’s a little bit different to this week. We’re resting the whole squad this week but you could see the benefit of guys having a week off and guys having that time off because they’d played the majority of the season… they’d played big minutes.”
Some have complained about the decision or raised issues with Wakefield’s Daryl Powell also speaking on Thursday to explain that rotation was ‘not great for the game’, however, Peters was clear in his decision.
“Obviously, there’s going to be a difference in opinions and of course, people are going to have a different view on it and that’s fine. I’m only going by what we see every day and where we are at the stage of the year.
“We saw last week that some guys were freshened up and you could see that performance and we’re looking at that for next week as well. There’s no excuse for fatigue and being tired or anything like that next week because they’re getting their rest this week. It certainly would have been if we just kept them playing.”
