Hull KR’s players will get a break before starting their season proper on Monday
England international Mikey Lewis reported back for pre-season training just after Christmas.(Image: Hull KR)
Hull KR will hand their squad a long weekend off with Willie Peters hoping it is the last time his players will get an extended rest until the season conclusion in October. Having experienced playing every week on their way to a treble success, Rovers know the demands needed, which has fed into the club’s pre-season plans and approach to the closing stages of pre-season.
Rovers have prioritised minutes on the training field rather than minutes on the pitch in an actual game this pre-season with the solitary fixture against Wakefield last week seeing the majority of the senior players rested.
Given the rigours of last season in winning every trophy on offer and the hope they will be playing every week once again this year once the campaign starts, Peters has opted to give his squad an extended break this weekend before returning to training on Monday in what will be the Robins’ first game week of the season.
KR start their Challenge Cup defence a week tomorrow at home to Lock Lane, before opening their Super League campaign on Thursday February 12 at York Knights.
Returning to a match week training schedule, Rovers will go with a strong side against Lock Lane, with the squad heading into the match on the back of the reward of a deserved break after months of hard training.
“This week is the difficult week where we are in the last week of pre-season training still, that’s how we look at it,” said Willie Peters.
“We put a fair bit into the players, but we will aim to keep it fun too as we build towards round one and then the World Club challenge. The boys have had a couple of hard days of work, but we’ve given them some time off too ahead of it starting next week.
“We didn’t play the experienced guys (against Wakefield) because they prefer to play and then have that week to week rugby, we’ve got that (from next week).”