Sky Sports pundit Jon Wilkin believes that Hull KR boss Willie Peters is being let down by his players, and that some of their squad are letting the side down significantly.
KR have lost their last two, with defeats coming to Wakefield Trinity at home, before this weekend saw them downed by Warrington Wolves.
Rovers have scored just 18 points in those games, after being kept to only penalty goals in the Trinity loss.
As a result, the club have dropped out of the top six, and now are at real threat of missing out on the finals, despite being crowned treble winners in 2025.
As such, Sky pundit Wilkin believes some of their players have “tossed it in”, and need to significantly buck their ideas up as we head into the last run of games.
“I think Willie Peters carries an unreasonable amount of burden for how successful they’ve been,” he said following the defeat to Wire.
“As a coach, I think he has absolutely got the most out of this group of players. I said before the game that it’s like a car with too many warning lights on and the players have a responsibility to fix this, not just Willie Peters.
“He’ll carry a lot of responsibility, that’s the job of a head coach, but the players have tossed it in the last two weeks. They’ve just not been good enough.
“They’ve made stupid errors, they’ve given petulant penalties, they’ve given away penalties with the ball. They’ve then, off the back of it, not had the resilience to defend it, which is what Hull KR always had.
“They’ve just got in this repetitive doom loop of errors, penalties, lacking energy, poor defensive decisions, more errors, more penalties, poor defensive decisions, and that is the cycle that they’re in.”
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Jon Wilkin’s assessment of Hull KR as mitigating factors assessed
Whilst the Robins are rightly being criticised for their efforts over the past fortnight, Wilkin did contradict his comments with some mitigating factors that tell more of a story towards the drop in form.
The “most telling” factor, for Wilkin, was the fact that KR haven’t had an in-competition break since July last year, meaning they have played on every possible week of the calendar for a year.
He explained: “The others for me, barring the Willie Peters’ announcement, are them as victims of being successful. That’s all the baggage that comes with being successful.
“It’s mitigation, but if you sit in the top seat, if you want to get back there, you have to accept that you are going to play more games than anyone else. You have to accept you’re going to get to Challenge Cup finals, you’re going to go deep into the play-offs, you have to accept volume.
“…They’re a champion club, but they’re creaking, and they’re creaking in a number of areas.
“I’m not writing them off, I’m just saying visibly, optically, they look flawed.”
Eric T Cat
July 20, 2026 at 12:18 am
Many clubs, other than St Helens, Wigan, and Leeds have gone on to struggle after reaching the dizzybheights of a Grand Final. Hull FC have disintegrated, Bradford went under and resurrected, as did Salford, Castleford have struggled, Warrington it’s never quite their year, and Catalans wax on and off. I suspect the issues of finances catch up to clubs enjoying too much success. This year Rovers seem to have been worked out, relying on last years reputation, and expecting success rather than going out to earn it.