Chester wants good start from Hull KR

Hull KR coach Chris Chester knows that getting off to a good start is vital to his teams chances of success in Super League XX.

The Robins open their campaign by welcoming Leeds Rhinos to the KC Lightstream Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

“It’s important this season that we get off to a good start and all our energies and focus over the past week or two have been towards making sure we do that,” he told his club’s official website.

“The last good start we got off to was probably in 2009 and it’s definitely an area we can improve on over the coming weeks. Last year, we got one point from our first possible ten and the year before wasn’t much better.

“There’s a lot less games this year before the split and it’s important we don’t give ourselves too much to do later in the year.

“We feel we’ve got the balance right with the squad this year, we’ve got some exciting halves and some exciting outside backs and some aggression in the pack.

“We’ve made a lot of changes but there’ll be no excuses from us because the squad know what I expect and what my staff expect.

“It doesn’t matter whether they’ve been here three weeks or two years, we know we need a good performance and it’s up to us to deliver one.”

Chester also acknowledged that last season highlighted some important problems which needed to be rectified if the team were to be successful this time around.

“I don’t like looking too much into what happened last year, but fitness was one issue and discipline was another,” he added.

“We’ve worked really hard on our fitness in pre-season to make sure it’s not going to be a problem for us this year.

“People like Paul Hatton and Billy Mallinson have done a great job in getting these lads very fit and hopefully that will show in our second half performances.

“We finished strongly in the derby and proved we could go for the full 80 minutes, but consistency is the key for us this season.

“We need to be putting that effort in every single week, for 80 minutes, and if we do that the results will take care of themselves.”