Hull KR coach Willie Peters hailed his side’s late defensive efforts to win the derby against Hull FC – but admits Niall Evalds is set to miss the Leeds game next weekend.
Evalds went off with a groin problem and it affected Rovers’ momentum – leading to reorganisation, with Mikey Lewis showing qualities at full-back.
Discussing Evalds, Peters said: “There’s an issue there but I don’t know how bad it is, we’ll have to wait and see. He is unlikely for next week but I am not sure.
“We had Niall that went off with the groin issue so we had to move some players around and naturally that can hurt your flow and the way you want to attack.”
It was a feisty game at times, won 24-10 by Rovers, which included four yellow cards – including sin-binnings for KR’s Elliot Minchella and FC’s Brad Fash after a heated altercation, while Joe Burgess was the other Robins player to be sin-binned.
Rovers prevailing meant that they have won three derbies out of three against FC in 2024.
Peters said: “It’s always good to get a win against FC, there’s no doubt about that. They’ve had some changing to their roster and they had a lot of young players out there. Regardless, to get three wins over your rivals is a good feeling for the players and for the fans. Certainly the players will enjoy it and the fans will enjoy it but on again next week against Leeds.
“I thought we started well and we wanted to start well after a poor start last week against Catalans. It was something that we spoke about during the week and it was pleasing to see that we did start well. I thought FC stepped their game up and we probably didn’t handle certain things that happened. I don’t think we attacked all that well tonight. But I was really happy with the way we defended and closed that game out.
“The start set us up to get that result back end because it was tight game for long periods. When they scored that last try, it was game on and I thought we handled that period, that last 15-20 minute period, well defensively. There were a couple of lapses but we looked reasonably comfortable. But it could have gone either way, credit to them.”