Hull KR boss Willie Peters isn’t concerned by his side’s lack of attacking output in recent weeks. The Robins beat St Helens 12-8 on Friday night at Craven Park as they moved to within touching distance of the League Leaders’ Shield.
While it was an intense and high quality encounter defensively, KR struggled to create opportunities to find the breakthrough for large periods. That was until a Mikey Lewis 40/20 laid the platform for Joe Burgess to go over in the corner in the 66th minute of the game.
Rovers have scored more points than anyone else this season, cementing themselves as the competition’s most potent team. But, they have managed to touch down just once in each of their last three games.
Of course, the opposition is something to do with that, with those fixtures coming against Wigan Warriors, Leeds Rhinos and St Helens. And, while Peters has vowed that he will take a look at the way his side have been attacking of late, he doesn’t see it as a major issue.
“It was hard fought,” Peters said about his side’s win over St Helens. “A gritty performance, really, really pleased.
“Especially after last week, I thought we got beaten in every area last week, we didn’t have the intent around us. I thought this week we played and responded in the best way possible.
“If they’d scored two tries at the back end of the game, it would have been a similar summary of the game. Obviously that back end we need to look at, but we got the result and in terms of performance I’m really happy with it. It was a gritty, tough, Hull KR performance.
“People will say about our attack and how our attack was off and we need to improve, I’ll have a good look at that. But when you’re coming up against one of the best defensive teams in the comp, they’re hard to break down and that’s why we ended up taking three penalty kicks.
“You get the points and you want to take the points. Defensively that’s what we wanted to be great at and for large periods I thought we were.
Asked specifically about his side’s offence, the Hull KR boss said: “I need to have a look to see if it was off and where is it we need to improve but when you’re playing against quality opposition like we did when we played Wigan, we scored one try in that game, you’re not going to score many.
“You might score one or two in the big games but very rarely are you going to go on and score five or six tries. If you do, it means a teams off.
“We need to have a look at how we can improve it, there’s no doubt about that but I’m sitting here a very happy man on the back of last week and I’m really proud of what they did defensively and what they’ve gone through, it’s been a tough year but they keep turning up for each other.”
Hull KR boss on the League Leaders’ Shield
The win over St Helens means there is a chance that the Robins could wrap up top spot when they take on local rivals Hull FC. The Robins would need Wigan to drop points against either Catalans Dragons or St Helens to do that, though, and because of that, Peters is focused simply on the things he can control.
“It’s obviously results based with Wigan,” he added. “If Wigan win this week and they win next week, we’re still only four points if we beat FC, going into the last two games.
“We’re not looking at that game to win the League Leaders’ Shield, we’re looking at that game to go and beat FC.”
