Willie Peters has announced his first squad as Hull KR head coach ahead of their pre-season matchup with Featherstone Rovers on Friday evening.
The game will serve as former Rovers’ legend, Craig Hall’s, testimonial game with the Robins making the trip to Featherstone to honour their former winger.
Perhaps more important for KR fans though is that this is the first chance they’ll get to see the style of player their new boss brings, and also the squad selection.
The second part of that question has been answered already as Peters has named a young squad to head to the Millennium Stadium.
New signing Tom Opacic from the NRL features and is perhaps the standout name with the centre being the only one of the three NRL signings making his debut.
Sauaso Sue and Rhys Kennedy won’t feature with Kennedy still believed to be recovering from surgery.
Ireland international Ethan Ryan will feature in the back row with Opacic and play will be orchestrated by Jordan Abdull but generally the squad is full of youth.
The club announced the squad news via their Twitter profile.
Here's your first squad news of 2023! 👊💪#UpTheRobins🔴⚪️ pic.twitter.com/L0XwyRMd5i
— Hull KR (@hullkrofficial) January 18, 2023
Opacic won’t be the only player debuting though with Owen Maull, Harvey Reynolds and Leo Tennison bringing plenty of youth to the squad as they get their first run out in KR colours.
As for other signings Sam Luckley (Salford Red Devils) and Louis Senior (Huddersfield Giants) will both feature but the standout name is clearly Opacic who signed from Parramatta Eels.
Plenty of names miss out though which highlights the depths KR have now got with the likes of veterans Ryan Hall, Lachlan Coote and skipper Shaun Kenny-Dowall whilst others like James Batchelor (signed from Wakefield), Mikey Lewis and Matt Parcell also won’t feature.
