I’ll be honest with you all: I nearly wrote a piece like this back in June/July (during a particularly bad run of form). Not long after I made a start on it, the team’s fortunes rebounded somewhat and I put the idea on the back burner, but now, with Rovers’ season finished at the hands of the Warrington Wolves, I think it’s time to dissect the season that was.

It’s been a mixed bag of a season, to put it very mildly, for the Robins. In truth, it was a mixed bag of a first few weeks, as the team that had conquered the league in 2025 found themselves on the wrong end of a drop goal to open 2026 with a historic defeat against the newly promoted York Knights. They followed that low point with what was probably the biggest victory in the club’s 140-year-plus history by claiming the World Club Challenge after defeating the Brisbane Broncos 30-24. Then, as if things weren’t crazy enough, they whisked away to Las Vegas to get a thorough thrashing at the hands of the Leeds Rhinos. It ended up being a case of ‘start as you mean to go on’.

Following the madness that was the start of the league season, the team began to pick up some pace. Barring a narrow defeat away at the Catalans Dragons, the Robins went unbeaten from the end of March, right up to the Challenge Cup final at the end of May. Amongst that run of nine back-to-back wins in the league and cup, it was announced that head coach Willie Peters was to depart the club to take up the job of head coach at the new NRL franchise, the PNG Chiefs. We can debate the rights and wrongs of announcing it until the cows come home, but the fact is that development would not have stayed under wraps until the end of the season. The club could have chosen to ignore the mounting speculation, but it would have only come under fire for keeping fans in the dark. In this age of click-based journalism, there’s just no way news like that could have been kept under cover for months on end. We saw that when the news first broke, and it would have only grown had the club not announced the news themselves.

It could be said that the early season travel schedule caught up with the team, but that’s the price you pay for being one of, if not the, top clubs in the game. Leeds also travelled to Vegas, and they had managed to keep a consistent challenge at the top of the table up until the last few weeks. While it is true that Rovers had fewer weeks off, as Leeds were knocked out of the Challenge Cup at an early stage, once again, you can’t have things both ways. TO be a top team, this is the schedule you need to be used to. Wigan have managed it consistently for years, and Saints before them. This was our first taste of being the hunted instead of the hunter, but if that’s something we want to be again, we have to get used to the schedule.

I think the biggest change was the leaders we lost on and off the pitch. In 2025, we had the experienced heads of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Mickey McIllorum on the pitch, and while they were not the players they once were, the function they played in the dressing room is glaringly obvious now that they’re gone. So too is the departure of Shaun Kenny-Dowall and Danny Ward, who left our coaching staff at the start of the season. Obviously, I don’t know the changes in coaching from, say, Danny Ward to Ian Watson, but the output on the pitch tells the story. Our defence in 2025 was legendary; we very rarely conceded more than eighteen points all year. By comparison, this season, we have conceded over forty points on three occasions, and over fifty in Vegas. We may not know the full extent of Ward and SKD’s influence, but on that evidence alone, it’s fair to say that we didn’t adequately replace what was lost.

By the mid-to-late point of 2026, the team were looking tired, and a shell of themselves from the year previous. At one point, there was a genuine fear that we might miss the play-offs, and we only didn’t because of a historically bad St Helens side. Now, we’ve exited the play-offs at the first hurdle, and no one can say we didn’t deserve to, either. We had moments in the ascendancy in the Wire game, but on the whole, we were outplayed and exposed.

Still, there is reason for optimism. A new coach brings a new outlook, and probably a few new faces too. That naturally means that some favourites will be leaving, which is sad, of course, especially in the case of Joe Burgess, who is a real fan favourite at Craven Park, but the fact remains that he doesn’t have age on his side, and neither do a few of our key players. Cayless wants his people in, and unfortunately that means a few will be heading for the exit door.

We’ve also had a glimpse at our promising roster of young Robins in the past month, a few of whom put in very impressive displays, namely Frankie Dearlove and Flynn Holden, with Dearlove in particular not looking out of place at all amongst seasoned Super League operators. It could be that with the arrival of Nathan Cayless, a coach known for his work with youth teams, the old criticism of not using our youth becomes a thing of the past? I’d like to think that we will supplement our main roster of stars with emerging talent, but of course, that remains to be seen.

Whilst I would have liked to have seen a better league defence than what we put up, I can’t be too upset at the club after delivering more than I could have ever dreamed of in the last year. I also know that the administration of the club off the field remains in a good place, with Paul Lakin spearheading a board who are still ambitious and hungry. I can’t see a sustained drop-off in the standards set by Willie Peters in the last few years coming any time soon (at least I hope). Whilst next season could bring anything from top four to mid-table mediocrity, I think it would be churlish to expect Cayless to come in and have immediate success. He will need time to stamp his authority on the side and get them playing how he wants, and I think any Rovers fan who anticipates an immediate return to the very top is only setting themselves up for disappointment. I will be satisfied if we remain competitive next year, with an eye on pushing further ahead in the following seasons.

I also anticipate a big rebuild at the end of next season, too. It is to be expected that both Peta Hiku and Sauaso Sue will retire. Possibly also Dean Hadley, as his contract expires at the end of the 2027 season and he’s coming to the autumn of his career; albeit, with an engine like Deano has, he could well go round again. Tyrone May is also coming to the end of his contract, and I would be focusing my resources on retaining him if I were the Rovers hierarchy. He is a key cog in our creative engine and in contention for our best player. Then, others aren’t out of contract but might well leave anyway; there are usually at least one or two of those. It’ll be an interesting few years ahead for the club, but we fans can only live in hope that we don’t lose our place at the top of the table for too long.

Written by Nathan Major (Site editor & Hull KR fan)