HULL KR coach Willie Peters says his players have earned the right to have a few days off after an exhausting run since winning the Challenge Cup in early June.
Peters said after a 34-6 win at Catalans Dragons: “We came here to get two points and it’s the first time we have done that for a while. The monkey’s off our back now and the players get a few well-earned days off this week and then we come back and focus on the next challenge, which is Salford.
“We did what we needed to do but we bombed a few chances in that first half.
“It was pretty similar to the game against Leeds a couple of weeks back but what I was happy about is that we didn’t let it affect us. Catalans scored that try but I thought our defence was quite solid tonight.
“We need to make sure that we start executing all of our opportunities because as we saw in that Leeds game it can hurt you in the back end.
“I thought we suffocated Catalans with our line speed, we got field position and then we built pressure by asking a few questions. We did that well but we didn’t execute when we should have done.”
Asked if city rivals Hull FC beating Wigan earlier in the day had taken any pressure off the race for the top spot in Super League, Peters added, “It wasn’t about Wigan winning or losing this weekend, we had to come here and do it ourselves. Last week we got beaten by Leigh, they were the better team on the day but we didn’t play the way we wanted to.
“We played reasonably well the week before against Leeds and there were moments in the game where we got beat. We were beaten all over the park against Leigh.
“We needed to change that this week and we did that for the majority of the game.
“The competition is tight, which is what makes Super League special. Any team can beat anyone on their day, we’ve got Salford in a couple of weeks and they can trouble you for long periods in games.
“They did that against Castleford recently so there are no gimmes in the Super League, which is what we want, it’s what the competition should be like.
“We’ve got a challenging run home, Salford first then we got Cas, but the biggest thing for us is giving the players a bit of time off.
“They’ve had a big campaign, winning the Challenge Cup and the six games after that was a solid 18-20 weeks of hard work, they need a break then we’ll regroup and look at Salford, that’s our focus.”