Sandercock believes Gardner is most professional player he’s coached

Hull Kingston Rovers coach Craig Sandercock is not a man known for his emotional outbursts. The Rovers chief is one of Super League‘s cooler characters, generally speaking, rarely really opening up to the media.

But he was clearly full of pride when he spoke to reporters at the press conference following his team’s Magic Weekend victory over Hull FC.

Sandercock praised his team’s star performers, and became animated when he stated just how good he thought Josh Hodgson and Ade Gardner were for the Rovers.

“We’ve got a lot of faith in Josh, that’s why the chairman has signed him up long term,” he said.

“There’s a couple of parts of his game that me and him are working incredibly hard on, because I feel that potentially he could be up there.

“Today, he was superb. Travis Burns and Josh are leading our team superbly. Travis doesn’t put in a bad game. He’s a competitor and we’re very happy with him at the moment.

“They’re pleasures to coach. They do what they’re asked, and they want to learn, and they want to get better. As a coach, that’s all you want from your players.”

Sandercock also became animated when asked about Ade Gardner, a loan signing from St Helens. The veteran winger bagged a brace of tries for KR in Manchester, and his coach was effusive in his praise.

“They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but there were a couple of tricks from Ade there,” he smiled.

“He got a couple of tries, and he’s been invaluable for us. He’s professionalism is second-to-none.

“He’s up there with any player in the NRL I’ve coached in terms of professionalism.

“I couldn’t be happier with Ade.”