Hull KR boss Willie Peters has no intention of skimming over Thursday night’s shock defeat to York Knights ahead of the World Club Challenge.
The Robins were stunned by the newly promoted outfit at the LNER Community Stadium in what was one of the biggest shocks the competition has ever seen. KR trailed early in the game through a Sam Wood try before responding to take a 18-6 lead into the final 20 minutes of the game.
However, that’s when Mikey Lewis was sin-binned for what can only be described as an act of sheer stupidity, needlessly tripping Liam Harris. And, the game swung on its head in that moment as York launched a late comeback to embarrass last season’s treble winners, with Ata Hingano’s drop goal being the difference between the two.
It was hardly ideal preparations for Thursday’s World Club Challenge against Brisbane Broncos then, with KR having to improve drastically if they’re to trouble the NRL side at the MKM Stadium.
Peters isn’t about to move on from the loss at York, though. Instead, he will be looking for his players to be accountable for their action, take responsibility and take action to right their wrongs ahead of what promises to be one of the biggest games in the club’s 144-year history.
“Last year is last year, it’s gone,” Peters said when asked about how he’ll take his side into next week. “We took what we did last year into today because it was our first game.
“We played the amateur team last week and then we had a friendly against Wakefield and not everyone played, so we used a fair bit of what we did last year for this game.
“We’re not going to skim over it, we need to own it, all of us. It’s important that we all take responsibility for what we did and certain individuals, I’m sure will take more responsibility, because we need to learn now and then move on and when I say move on, I mean action.”
The clash will be played at a sold out MKM Stadium, with approximately 24,000 seats sold. A large majority of those will be Rovers fans and Peters will be striving to ensure Hull KR bounce back to make their supporters proud.
“There’ll be 24,000,” Peters added. “It was a great little atmosphere tonight but I think it holds 10,000. So 24,000 in Hull will be loud but we need to give them something to cheer about. That’s important.”
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