Peters has given an honest assessment of how his final season at Hull KR panned out
Willie Peters has left Hull KR as he prepares to head back to the NRL(Image: Getty)
Willie Peters believes Hull KR will better for the experience of their testing 2026 Super League campaign as they bid to kick on under Nathan Cayless.
Rovers’ season came to an end on Saturday as they were soundly beaten by Warrington Wolves in the Super League play-off eliminators. The result was fatal to their hopes of retaining the title they won last year at Old Trafford, while it also saw Peters’ four-year stint in charge of the club come to an end, too, with the Australian heading back to the NRL next season.
Ultimately, though, it was a loss that summed up the club’s subpar season as they strived to back up last year’s history making treble.
More silverware was secured in February as the club won the World Club Challenge against NRL premiers Brisbane Broncos, but the Robins started the year with successive Super League defeats before their Challenge Cup reign was ended emphatically by Wigan Warriors at Wembley.
That defeat in May sparked a real period of instability on the pitch for the Robins and they went on to lose eight league games between June and the final round of the regular Super League season.
KR finished sixth overall then and they were second best at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.
Peters doesn’t have regrets about the way his final season at Craven Park panned out, but KR’s most successful coach in the modern era believes individuals from top to bottom must look themselves in the mirror in their bid to overcome their 2026 shortcomings.
“You have a lot of learnings more so than regrets,” Peters told Hull Live. “When you win silverware and you do what we did, it’s not down to one person, it’s a collective. So what you need to have is a strong vision and everyone needs to be on the same page. It’s mentally everyone being dialled in.
“From this year, the question is asking individuals what did they do? Did they do anything different to last year and what could they have done? You’re always going to get learnings and in hindsight maybe there’s different decisions, do you change this or do you change that?
“We spoke about going a little bit further in everything we did but we had to bring that back and simplify that because of the demanding season.
“There’s things we tried to do to freshen the place up but that’s something individually that everyone needs to answer themselves and I think for the club and what the new coach will do moving forward is ask themselves that question and what could they do better. That’s something that individuals need to answer themselves.”
He added: “This team when they’re dialled in and hungry, more often than not they come up with success. It’s something that individuals have to ask themselves, were they as hungry and dialled in as they could have been and if that’s a yes, then what did they do? And if it’s a no, then it’s obviously an easier fix.
“It’s a collective effort and it takes a whole team to win and I’m talking from top down, did everyone do what they could to make sure it was a success in a demanding year? I’m sure collectively they’ll speak about it but I think it’s important with a new coach coming in, he’ll have his values and beliefs and a bit of freshness will certainly help re-energise some of the players.
“For me, up until Wembley, we’re sitting third and we had eight or nine wins in a row off the back of a demanding start. Off the back of that that’s where there was inconsistencies and a lot of that needs to be individual based and I’m talking about everyone.
“I think we went back to a little bit of ’23, in terms of we had strong performances but it wasn’t the performances of ’24 and ’25.”