HULL KR captain Shaun Kenny-Dowall has said the club is working hard under new head coach Willie Peters to avoid the kind of injury toll it suffered last season.
Kenny-Dowall has been confirmed as the Robins’ skipper for another campaign, after leading the side for much of his first year at the club in 2020 and then being officially appointed club captain in 2021.
The 34-year-old former New Zealand international has signed a new one-year deal to enter a fourth season with the club, and this one will bring a new coach as Australian Peters takes the reins.
Hull KR are already well into their pre-season schedule and Kenny-Dowall has been impressed with how things have gone so far.
He said: “We’ve enjoyed it so far. We’ve bought into what Willie’s brought over and the new systems.
“We’re into week five now (last week) and I think it’s progressing well. We’ve been big on mindset and improving our individual performances.”
There has also been a focus on improving a dire injury record that severely hampered their 2022 season.
Rovers struggled to select a full squad in the final months of the campaign under interim coach Danny McGuire, and could only field 16 players in their final-day derby win at Hull FC, even when including several Academy prospects, as more than half of the first-team squad were injured.
“We’ve been working on reducing injuries in the season so we’re having massages three times a week, looking after our bodies and taking our rehab to a new level,” revealed Kenny-Dowall.
The veteran, who was Hull KR’s only representative in the Super League Dream Team last season, also said he has made no decision yet on whether to play on beyond the 2023 season.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.
“There’s still a lot of rugby to come before that, but I’ll take this year as it comes and then I’ll look at it next October and make my decision.”
