Rovers aim to revive attacking threat

Ahead of the start of the 2022 Betfred Super League season, one of the questions on many observers' lips was whether opposing teams would have figured out a way to blunt Hull Kingston Rovers' dynamic attacking game.

Even with the caveat of being just two games into a 27-round regular season, a 24-10 defeat at home to Wigan Warriors in the opening round followed by a 26-12 loss away to Huddersfield Giants last Saturday showed the Robins they will have to evolve their approach this time around.

Rovers are back at Sewell Group Craven Park on Friday night when they host another team aiming to chalk up their first win of the campaign in Castleford Tigers, live on Sky Sports, and half-back Jordan Abdull is aiming to produce more of the aspects shown in the closing stages against the Giants.

"Every team is trying to slow us down a little bit, but it's a good tactic for teams to slow down us," Abdull, who earned his first England Test cap against France last year on the back of his starring role for Rovers in 2021, said.

"We've got two really dangerous hookers and a strong backfield who carry hard, so teams have come up with a formula to try to go away from our strengths and we need to be a bit smarter, get our strengths in different areas of the game and try to make our strong carries in different areas as well.

"The last 20 minutes [against Huddersfield] is what we trained all week to do - play the ball quick, show some fight on the floor and maybe kick early.

"It's just a shame it took us 60 minutes to do that otherwise we could have seen a different scoreline against Huddersfield, but we learn from our mistakes and use that last 20 minutes as our formula to play against teams who are trying to slow us down."

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