{"id":639583,"date":"2026-06-15T09:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/639583\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T09:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:26:10","slug":"willie-peters-spells-out-impact-of-returning-hull-kr-star-as-leigh-leopards-demand-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/639583\/","title":{"rendered":"Willie Peters spells out impact of returning Hull KR star as Leigh Leopards demand made"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rovers take on Leigh Leopards on Friday night at Craven Park<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0_OH9_5757.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p aria-label=\"Hull KR head coach Willie Peters\" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">Hull KR head coach Willie Peters<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Hull KR must make improvements if they are to get the better of Leigh Leopards on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">That&#8217;s the message from head coach Willie Peters, who saw his side bounce back to winning ways with a 38-6 win over York Knights on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">That result stemmed a two-game losing streak in which KR conceded a combined total of 66 points against Wigan Warriors and Wakefield Trinity and, with results elsewhere going their way, they now sit third in the Super League table.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Rovers were better defensively against the Knights but Friday night&#8217;s win was far from the perfect performance, with KR going through periods of appearing a little jaded with the ball and inviting pressure on themselves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Leigh Leopards will pose much more of a threat on Friday night when Adrian Lam&#8217;s side arrive in east Hull and Peters wants to see more strides forward made.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;For us, if we&#8217;re honest, we look at the last two weeks and our defence wasn&#8217;t where it needs to be,&#8221; Peters said after Friday&#8217;s contest. &#8220;Down at Wembley they scored 40 points and then last week, we should win scoring 24 points I believe but we let in 26.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;There was too many points leaked in those two games but I thought we fixed some areas tonight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;We play Leigh next week who ask a lot of questions as well so we have to keep improving but overall I&#8217;m happy with the way we defended.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;I always hone in on the defence but the players drive it and when they do drive it, that&#8217;s when you can just sit back and you&#8217;re happy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;We probably haven&#8217;t spoken about and actioned the last couple of weeks the way we would have liked in hindsight. We spoke about it after the game. We didn&#8217;t like what we did in the second half with the ball but defensively we go home tonight pleased because we defended our line.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">One of the major reasons behind KR&#8217;s improvement defensively was the return of Dean Hadley who missed last week&#8217;s loss at Wakefield Trinity after suffered a head knock just three minutes into the Challenge Cup final the week prior.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;He always does,&#8221; Peters said when asked about the difference Hadley made. &#8220;When I first came over, Dean Hadley for me was going to be one of the first picked each week because of what he does off the ball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;That&#8217;s the kick pressures and working from the inside, that goes unnoticed from some people but not by his teammates or us. We missed him, there&#8217;s no doubt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">&#8220;Some guys may have got exposed a little bit because Dean Hadley does a lot of cleaning up for quite a number of people. We don&#8217;t want to have Dean as the only one and he&#8217;s not the only one but he certainly leads the way.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rovers take on Leigh Leopards on Friday night at Craven Park Hull KR head coach Willie Peters Hull&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[20372,5903,20370,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-639583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-hull-kr","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-league","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}