It is surely a sign of a good team that they can play poor and win 34-0. That’s what Hull KR did here against Huddersfield Giants.
This was ultimately a very comfortable win for Hull KR, though nobody would have been predicting that after an hour. Rovers were only 4-0 ahead and proving incredibly out of tune against a dogged, albeit limited, Giants side.
The error count between the two teams was atrocious and with the ball, Rovers were not anything lke what they have been.
They ultimately scored 34 points and you can put that down to the fact that eventually, Huddersfield just could not hang with Rovers’ intensity. That’s a script we’ve seen over and over this year, the Robins are patient but they’re also incredibly fit. Teams cannot match them on that front and the points came off the back of that.
Willie Peters decided to rest two key members of his team. Ever-presents Peta Hiku and Sauaso Sue were given a week off, replaced by Arthur Mourgue and Noah Booth, who were both cup-tied last week.
Initially, you could have been forgiven for thinking Rovers were just taking their time to get into the swing of things. Defensively they were dominant in the early stages to earn territory and the opportunities started to come, though they did look a bit off with the ball.
Eventually, the deadlock was broken in the 14th minute. Jared Waerea-Hargreaves found an offload, Tyrone May rocketed a pass out wide and quick hands put Joe Burgess to the line.
It looked like that had burst the dam when Mikey Lewis scored on the next set. However, it was disallowed for an obstruction. After that, this became a painful watch for a good 40 minutes.
Put simply, it was just a really poor game of low quality and high error volume. Both teams were equally culpable, it was just surprising to see Rovers look so messy. There were multiple seven-tackle sets conceded, far too many handling errors to keep count and it was the timing of some of those errors too, shortly after a mistake from the other side, which had presented an opportunity.
Waerea-Hargreaves was sin binned for Rovers midway through the half for a high tackle on Matty English. The Giants prop left the field bloodied and unable to return to the field after an assessment. As a result, Waerea-Hargreaves will be given additional penalty points if he is charged by Match Review Panel in the week.
Huddersfield’s best chance came minutes after, but Jacob Gagai was superbly denied by a collective scramble effort from Rovers. At the other end, Rovers didn’t look like scoring as errors starved them of good ball.
The start of the second half was equally dour. Rovers made more errors than they did complete sets. As it carried on, the Giants were growing in belief that a shock was on the cards.
The only issue for Huddersfield was that they had delved deep into their energy tank and, just like so many other teams have done against Rovers this year, they eventually ran out of steam.
Rovers would eventually run out as comfortable winners. Mikey Lewis had been guilty of more than his fair share of the errors Rovers had produced, but he did orchestrate a crucial score. He slipped through the Giants defence and while his pass for Michella was patted down. From the resulting set, he burrowed over to give Rovers a two-score lead.
From there, the floodgates opened. The Giants caved in. Rovers, rid of the anxiety that had been growing, clicked into gear.
Such was Huddersfield’s fatigue, the tries were relatively simple. Tyrone May had nothing on so ran the ball in, and somehow beat three Huddersfield defenders to touch down.
From the next set, Jez Litten raced through a tiring defence and while Huddersfield recovered, Kelepi Tanginoa cruised to the line on the next play from a Burgess pass.
Jack Brown was a popular scorer on 73 minutes, again, proving too strong as he crashed over from close range.
Burgess finished the scoring, Rovers’ fifth try in 18 minutes, taking a reverse pass from Lewis before dummying Flanagan to score his second of the afternoon. Mourgue converted all of the second-half tries while Rovers secured their fifth ‘nil’ of the season as Huddersfield offered no further threat.
Hull KR: Arthur Mourgue, Tom Davies, Noah Booth, Jack Broadbent, Joe Burgess, Mikey Lewis, Tyrone May, Dean Hadley, Jez Litten, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Jai Whitbread, James Batchelor, Elliot Minchella. Subs: Sam Luckley, Kelepi Tanginoa, Jack Brown, Bill Leyland.
Tries: Burgess (14, 77), Lewis (59), May (63), Tanginoa (65), Brown (73)
Goals: Mourgue 5/6
Giants: George Flanagan Jnr, Jacob Gagai, Sam Halsall, Taane Milne, Adam Swift, Keiran Rush, Adam Clune, Oliver Wilson, Zac Woolford, Joe Greenwood, Sam Hewitt, Jake Bibby, Leroy Cudjoe. Subs: Harry Rushton, Ashton Golding, Matty English, George King.