Sandercock unhappy with ‘silly’ Rovers

Hull KR coach Craig Sandercock has expressed his disappointment in their home collapse against Bradford on Saturday night.

Rovers were well in command of the match at 24-8, but the Bulls scored 28 unanswered points in an impressive last half hour to pick up their third win of the season, which lifts them above Hull KR and in to the top eight.

Sandercock told the club’s official website: “Just like we have been doing recently, we came up with too many silly penalties and too many silly errors and weren’t able to defend on the back of that.

“Unfortunately, it’s been the story of our season and unless we get that tough mentality where we want to compete and want to defend an error, then that’s what’s going to happen.

“I was disappointed with most of Bradford’s tries from our point of view as most of them were very soft. Unfortunately, we didn’t make Bradford have to work very hard at all for their tries and that’s probably the most disappointing thing.”

Rovers lead 12-0 after just six minutes thanks to converted tries from Kris Welham and Mickey Paea, and despite scores from Jason Crookes and Karl Pryce, the home side were still able to go in 18-8 to the good thanks to Josh Hodgson‘s try on the stroke of half time.

Craig Hall increased Rovers’ cushion early in the second half, and it looked like the writing was on the wall for the Bulls.

But a superb finish by Crookes gave Bradford hope with 27 minutes to play, and further tries from Matt Diskin and Brett Kearney tied things up at 24-24, with Jarrod Sammut‘s conversion nudging the visitors in front.

Crookes notched his hat-trick try with three minutes to play, and a touchline conversion from Sammut ultimately made the game safe before Keith Lulia added gloss to the scoreline in the final minute.