Quinlan strikes right KR chord with Sheens

Hull KR coach Tim Sheens was pleased with the way his team beat Hull FC in a preseason friendly at the KCOM on Sunday.

The performance of new full back Adam Quinlan was also something from which he took encouragement for the season ahead.

“I was happy with a couple of things,” Sheens told the post-match press conference.

“One – we got through without any major issues injurywise, and that’s always important when you’re talking about these games.

“Two – we looked better organised than we were against Wakefield a few weeks back before Christmas.

“We’ve done a lot of work to try and to sort ourselves out.

“We’ve got a bit of work to do with Adam Quinlan.

“He did really well, but he’s only been with us a week, and we were just a little at sea there.

“But I’ve seen enough to be happy about having him at the back for us.

“He’s still waking up at three o’clock in the morning getting ready to go to work.

“We were only going to play him half a game today, but we had a couple of guys [drop out], young Minns was sick and he didn’t start, he’d had a virus.

“So we ended up playing him for a little bit more football.

“He was a little tight, so we took him off early into the second half.

“He showed us enough.”

Rovers won the game comfortably, beating a young FC side 40 – 16.

Sheens was happy with the style that the Robins played, though, as they looked to move the ball rather than just bludgeon their young opponents into submission.

“We only played a young side there, but you can only beat what you play,” he added.

“We won well by way of playing, we didn’t just bully our way through, we finessed our way through the line at times with some good stuff.

“Our skill level, which we’ve worked really hard at, looked good, albeit a couple of times we had a couple of brain explosions.

“But I’m yet to coach a perfect game or see it played, so I’m not going to sit here and criticise them.

“There’s still things to work on.”