Chester takes positives from Hull KR’s defeat to Leeds

Correspondent

Hull KR lost their opening home Super League fixture of the season 30-40 to Leeds on Sunday, but coach Chris Chester was not too disappointed.

The Robins had 11 new players on show, and managed to score some great tries, but were often weak in defence, allowing a 30-14 lead to slip in the second half.

“There were lots of positives to come out of that. I thought we were the better team for 65 minutes and they’ve just got us at the end,” Chester told his club’s official website.

“It was pretty much the first time the full team had played together but you could see the effort was there and the commitment to each other.

“We’ll keep getting better and I’m confident we’ll give this competition a good shake.

“I thought there were two good sides out there today and we’re obviously disappointed with the result but I’m really happy with the performance.

“Defensively, we’ve got to fix a few things up but we’ll work on that and we’ll go to Wakefield next week full of confidence. I’m excited about the players we have here and what this team can do so we’ll keep working hard and keep improving.”

As well as defence, Chester also identified a problem with Rovers’ second half completion rate.

“I thought everybody played pretty well and we just ran out of gas at the end. Our completion rate in the second half was probably why we lost the game today,” he added.

“It plays a big part in winning games and in the second half we completed at about 60 per cent, compared to 80 per cent in the first half.

“But we’re pretty happy with how we went today, everybody did a great job in getting a full house down and hopefully the crowd went away reasonably positive for the season ahead.

“I was proud of the effort and the way we played.”