Peters: KR are hungry team
WILLIE Peters praised his side’s response after half-time to secure their place in the Challenge Cup semi-final.
Hull KR are in the last four for a third straight season after coming from behind to defeat Leigh Leopards 26-14, ensuring they ended their defence of the competition as a result.
Rovers trailed 8-4 at half-time with Peters admitting he hadn’t been satisfied with his team’s performance at the break. But they came out firing after his words during the interval, with the Robins now one win away from returning to Wembley.
Speaking to the BBC after the game, Peters said: “A really good game, two teams going at it from last year’s Final and I thought it was an entertaining game, probably because we won. But that second half was a lot better from us. It took us a little bit of time to get in our groove, I don’t think we handled the wind too well but I thought we found that in the second half.
“I just said we probably weren’t sticking to what we planned to do and then we had a plan for the second half that they executed extremely well. They just handed the ball over too easily in poor field position, we didn’t build any pressure and that’s what we like to do.”
He added: “It’s the players that do it and that’s what we spoke about at half-time, the players that were going to get us that result.
“We’ve got a hungry team but we’re not getting carried away. We have a long way to go, but we’re heading in the right direction. If we stay hungry, good things will happen off the back of that.”
Peters admitted the team didn’t speak much about last year’s heartache in the build-up to the game, despite the obvious narrative being this was a shot at vengeance. But despite explaining why he hadn’t brought it up, emotions did get a hold of him.
“To be honest, I was pretty edgy, probably the most I have been in the box; I’m not going to lie there. During the week, we didn’t bring it up too much; I just think you bring up negative emotions if you do that. But I definitely felt it today, so it must have had some emotion attached.”
He added: “I think you learn a lot from experiences, we learned a lot from that final and playing Leigh two weeks later and again for the semi. It’s about doing that again, we’ve got a new challenge in a few weeks and a couple of Super League games. What makes our competition so special is how tight it is.
“We’ve got a tough game against Catalans and it will be a similar sort of game to that.”