Willie Peters was beaming with pride as he sat down in front of the press following his Hull KR side’s World Club Challenge win over Brisbane Broncos.
The Robins claimed a 30-24 win over the Australians in front of a sold out MKM Stadium crowd and in doing so they claimed their fourth trophy over the last eight months. They were good value for the win, too, with the Robins scoring five tries on the night to hold a 26 point lead with just over a quarter of the game to go.
Debutant Tom Amone got Rovers up and running before Elliot Minchella, Joe Burgess, Oliver Gildart and Peta Hiku touched down.
They had to survive a scare late in the game, with Brisbane scoring four late on, but ultimately, it was KR’s night and Peters could not be prouder of his men.
“It means a lot,” Peters said after the match. “We knew how big this game was, no Hull KR team has been involved in a game like this before.
“We had success in the past, especially in the 80s, but we had the first opportunity to become World Club champions and we wanted to do it. At the back end, it could have gone the other way and I would have been proud of them anyway but we didn’t deserve to lose.
“I knew they would come at some stage. We had the inside shoulder which was a system error for us and off the back of the that the momentum changed. That’s how they play and they won an NRL Grand Final last year coming back against the best opposition.
“It was exactly how we wanted to play. To be able to suffocate the Broncos in field position, it’s difficult to do because they’ve got strike, their team is so well balanced. For 57 minutes we were in full control. We lost that control and we had to find a way and we did.”
On surviving Brisbane’s late push to retain the win, he added: “I think people’s character comes out in hard times and players went through hard times at that back end.
“The people of east Hull don’t get things easily and we spoke about it before the game that players would have to work their backsides off, which is similar to how the people of east Hull live every day.
“I wanted to see us doing that and if we got beat doing that tonight, I actually said at half-time that I was proud of them and you shouldn’t say that at half-time, you should wait. I like to think I can be honest with the team because I was proud but we had to do it again.”
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