Rhyse Martin future update as deadline set for transfer decision on Hull KR star

Hull KR CEO Paul Lakin admits the club would like their new head coach to be able to decide on the future of off-contract duo Rhyse Martin and Sauaso Sue: but says time may dictate otherwise.

Martin and Sue are the two biggest and high-profile names still to sign on the dotted line at the Robins for 2027 and beyond. Others, including Peta Hiku, Oliver Gildart and Joe Burgess, have already committed their futures to the club past the end of the current campaign.

But with a change of coach looming, Lakin told Love Rugby League he would like Willie Peters’ replacement to have some wiggle room on the salary cap in order to be able to make his stamp on the club.

However, Lakin revealed that if a new coach is not finalised by the end of June, the decisions on Martin and Sue’s respective futures may have to be made internally by the Robins out of fairness for the overseas duo.

“The players need answers”

“Ideally I would like a new coach to have a bit of scope to do their own stuff because it’s difficult to tell someone they can’t do anything,” Lakin said. “We’re obviously going into June now for players though so it all depends on the timing.

“They need answers, the players. So I think if we get a coach sorted in the next couple of weeks, I think we’ll be all right. But if it goes towards the end of June then I think we’ll probably have to make the decisions on behalf of the players ourselves.”

34-year-old Sue is in his fourth season with the Robins, having joined at the start of 2023 at the same time Peters came to the club. Martin signed a two-year deal from Leeds Rhinos at the beginning of last season.

New coach identity

Lakin has kept the possible identity of Rovers’ new coach coy so far – but he insisted they are looking for the new man in charge to be willing to keep things fairly steady and not implement wholesale change.

However, he insists that makes the job a mouthwatering prospect for someone – with no need to rip up an under-performing squad and instead hit the ground running with one of the best teams in the game.

He said: “We want someone that will clearly adapt to the Hull KR way, things like world-class effort.. yeah, we don’t want big change. Why would we want someone to come in and change things?

“We have a spine set of the likes of Mikey (Lewis) and Jez (Litten); they’ve all got three, four or five years ahead of them. There’s a real rock solid spine there to build from. Mini (Elliot Minchella) has got at least two or three years left in him at the top of the sport.  So we’re not really looking for someone who’s going to make a lot of change.

“We want someone who’s going to embrace it and say, I want to take this and keep going with it. And I want to take this from an amazing couple of seasons into three or even four. That’s the utopia.”

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