Sheens seeks effort and cohesion at Hull KR

New Hull KR head coach Tim Sheens is relishing the chance to start the Robins’ Championship campaign against Bradford Bulls.

Rovers welcome the Bulls to the KC Lightstream Stadium on the first day of the 2017 season, before travelling to face London Broncos a week later.

Sheens thinks that such a challenging beginning to the new campaign will stand his squad in good stead.

“That’s the way to start, in my opinion, is to really test yourself right up,” he told Hull KR TV.

“I’d like to think Bradford at home will be a really good turn-out by our fans and ours.

“Straightaway we go into a tough game. London proved themselves this year, they’re very difficult to beat down there.

“That’s as tough a start as I think we can get in the Championship.

“We’ll know where we’re going after two weeks, won’t we.”

There will be plenty of new players at Rovers for 2017, with the likes of Danny Addy and Mitch Clark joining the club ahead of the new campaign.

Sheens feels it is important to plan properly and create the right culture at the club, with new faces, inluding him, around the place.

“There’s still some planning to do,” he said.

“One of our biggest issues will be with new faces. They’re all new faces to me, and there’ll be new faces amongst the players as well.

“So getting the language correct – all our plays, what we’re going to do on and off the field – it’s very important to get the culture right.

“All these things have to be worked on, so there’s a fair amount of work to do.”

One improvement that Sheens is very keen to see at Rovers is more positive effort on the field from the players.

“The fans only see the team go out,” he said.

“They don’t see what happens during the week, nor do they expect that to be an influence in the game.

“They’ve paid their good money to come in and watch the team perform.

“So the team has to answer that by performing, and it’s effort.

“You won’t win every game by 100, but you can’t afford to get beat by 100.

“If we happen to lose the game, we lose the game, but we don’t want to get beat.

“So it’s the effort that people expect, and it’s the effort that I expect.”