Hull KR boss Willie Peters explains why he’ll dip into other sports in the off-season: ‘I just want to learn and get better’
Hull KR head coach Willie Peters
Willie Peters is determined Hull KR will be even better in 2024, and that starts at the top, as he revealed his own plans to strengthen personally ahead of the new season with the help of a few friends from other avenues.
In his first year in charge, the Robins reached the Challenge Cup final and the Super League play-off semi-finals, beaten 42-12 by Wigan Warriors yesterday afternoon.
The result at the DW Stadium denied KR a first-ever trip to Old Trafford, and had they got there, they’d have been just the 10th different club to have stepped out in a Grand Final.
While most, if not all, of a Rovers persuasion will be more than content with how Peters’ first campaign at the helm has unfolded, he’s already firmly focused on improving upon it.
Hull KR boss Willie Peters wants to ‘learn and get better’ ahead of 2024
The Sydney-born KR chief spent 2000 with Wigan during his own playing days, featuring in the Grand Final defeat to St Helens that October.
Having seen the Robins beaten by his former club, Peters said: “At some stage I’ll definitely go away [on holiday]. Obviously that hasn’t been planned, we wanted to try to get to next week.
“We’ll do a review next week and then what I want to do is go to different organisations, get better myself, just like we ask the players to get better.
“I need to continue to do that as a coach as the other staff will as well but there’ll definitely be some down time, we’ll go overseas somewhere.
“I’ve got some friends and contacts in different places, whether it’s football, whether it’s union, I don’t mind. I just want to learn and get better.”
KR set for another tough pre-season as they strive for more
44-year-old Peters took over at Craven Park and inherited a squad coming off the back of a season which had seen them finish 8th on the Super League ladder, missing out on the play-offs having seen then-boss Tony Smith depart midway through the year and go on to join bitter rivals Hull FC.
December 2022 saw the Australian take his new colleagues over to Tenerife, away from the cold and damp nature of the English weather, though it was no picnic, with the squad firmly put through their paces. Hard yards were put in, and the Robins’ pack got a taste of what a Peters’ pre-season looked like.
While nothing is confirmed as to whether KR will head abroad again this winter, the boss says they can expect more of the same when it comes to gearing up for the new season.
He added: “We’ll look at this game and take our learnings from it, with the way we prepped and everything like that. We want to go from being a really good team to a great team, and you only do that by working hard in pre-season, that’s what set our season up.
“Some people at times were talking about our season being gone because of the way we trained in pre-season, but that set our season up and gave us the lift in the back end.
“I’m a massive believer that if you work hard in pre-season, it defines a lot of time who you want to be and who you are in the season.
“We won’t change too much around our approach, because what we did during the year was be smart with how we managed the players.”