Hadley has missed Hull KR’s last two games
Harvey Smith scored Wakefield Trinity’s first at Craven Park
Hull KR must find a way to cope without the presence of Dean Hadley, says Willie Peters.
The Robins were without Hadley for the second straight game on Saturday evening, with the forward currently sidelined after picking up his second concussion within the space of a month.
Peters’ side had enough to get the job done late on against Hull FC at Magic Weekend, but they were well short of their best against Wakefield Trinity at Craven Park, with the Robins losing 20-6 without getting over the line for a try.
They were poor with the ball in hand as errors stifled any sort of real progress but more worrying for Peters was the lack of discipline and the poor defence, with Wakefield scoring three tries from close range through Caius Faatili, who touched down on two occasions, and Harvey Smith.
Hadley is so often the pace setter in defence for KR and the forward was conspicuous by his absence.
“We missed Dean Hadley a lot,” Peters said. “He’s very important to our team.”
Asked if there was a solution while Hadley is out of the team, Peters added: “Yeah, people need to stand up and aim up, it’s as simple as that. We can’t rely on one player.
“We didn’t win the treble last year from relying on just one player, but he is extremely important to us.”
The loss was KR’s fourth in seven games with the recent run stretching back to the Challenge Cup final defeat to Wigan Warriors, which seems to have thrown KR well and truly off course.
Since then they have lost to Wakefield on two occasions and Leeds and that leaves Peters’ side in a precarious position on the edge of the play-off picture.
“I am very disappointed because it’s always how you lose and you’re going to lose, but it’s how you lose,” the head coach added. “We’ve had some really poor performances like at Wembley and against Leeds a few weeks back.
“I was actually proud of that performance for long periods against a very good team. We had adversity and players went off and players were busted, but we fought.
“I’m not saying the effort wasn’t there tonight, there’s effort there but there’s more than that. You need more than effort.”