Zak Hardaker has his say on Hull KR resting players

Last week Leeds Rhinos and Wigan Warriors provided the opposition for Leigh Leopards and Hull KR ahead of today’s Challenge Cup Final.

Both games were very different however as Wigan had their way with Hull KR whilst Leigh entered a real battle with Leeds coming out on top as 13-6 winners.

There was a reason for this however. Hull KR rested virtually everyone against Wigan even making loan signings to help them out and they were subsequently terrorised by Jai Field.

Meanwhile, Leigh only rested Zak Hardaker and Josh Charnley as they won against Leeds to keep themselves well in the race for the top two.

The resting of players by Hull KR has caused a lot of debate and now Zak Hardaker has weighed in.

“It caught me by surprise. Resting players, it’s not unheard of,  especially if you’ve got an older lad or a bit of a niggle, you get rested like I got rested at the weekend,” he said on the Fully Game.

“When I saw their team sheet and I think the lowest number was 16 onwards, it was like ‘Wow’. I think they rested the actual full squad, full team for the weekend. It caught me by surprise.

“We got beat by Wigan the week before and Lammie was a bit pissed off that we’d lost. Second in the table so I think he wants us to keep that in that aspect.

“He explained ‘I don’t want to be a person who’s not going to look after players’, but in other terms he wants to go out and beat Leeds on Sunday’s just gone so he named the full team, which I was quite shocked by.

“Suspensions nowadays if you hit someone around the ear and you get a two week ban, so like ten years ago a head high tackle would probably just be a telling off but now you’re scared to do anything wrong you don’t want to miss the Wembley trip.

“Me and Josh Charnley got rested and had a bit of a niggle so fortunately I was quite excited that I weren’t playing because I was a bit scared that if I played I might hurt it even more.

“I’m not quite sure about resting players though. I’ve been in a team where we’ve rested players and we’ve not performed,  and on the flip side I’ve been rested and we’ve been fresh so ultimately it comes out on the day.

“I think if we hammer Hull KR, which I don’t think we would, but it would probably come to bite them on the arse or if they beat us it could be ‘well you should have been rested’.

“It’s one of them, whatever works for us but I think most importantly we didn’t get any bans, no one’s injured so we could just go into this week you know confident that we’ve just beaten Leeds and set that form and take it to Saturday.”