Willie Peters blasts Hull KR with worst performance admission and veiled warning

The newly-crowned world club champions were humbled by Leeds Rhinos on their way to a 10-try defeat in Saturday's Yorkshire derby at Allegiant Stadium.

"Where do I start?" said Peters.

"We were beaten in every era. To be honest, the people I feel sorry for are the fans that paid hard-earned money to come to watch that. They saved money to come and watch their team play and we delivered a performance like that – it's just nowhere near good enough.

"We need to all look at ourselves, myself at the top of that, to find out why we got that performance. It certainly brought us back down to earth, that's for sure.

"We need to make sure we use actions more than words and do something about it because if that's going to be the template of what we do this season, we're in for a long season."

Rovers have had a challenging start to the year, travelling to Vegas after an energy-sapping victory over NRL champions Brisbane Broncos.

But Peters insisted his team simply didn't turn up.

"There are no excuses for that," he said.

"If we perform and get beat then maybe there's excuses why we ran out of petrol or whatever – but there are no excuses for that performance.

"I'm not going to sit here and deliver excuses about last week and all that sort of stuff because it's going to get tougher. It's only the start of the season.

"It wasn't the occasion because we've played in big games now. You'd like to think that they don't get overawed by any occasion. We've played in front of 70,000 people.

"As I say, individuals just need to have a look at themselves – and I'm on top of that."

Rovers were hoping to put on a spectacle in front of a new audience but instead left Allegiant Stadium red-faced.

While frustrated with his side's lacklustre display, Peters stressed it would have been unacceptable in any setting.

"To perform like that on any stage is disappointing," he said.

"I'm all about promoting the game and making sure we do the club proud, Super League proud and the British game proud. We did that last week but it doesn't matter.

"If we deliver that when it's Covid and no one's in the stadium, I'm still not going to be happy.

"I'm happy with how the players handled themselves and conducted themselves during the week but when we needed to do our job, we didn't do it.

"That would be the worst performance (during my time at the club), for sure."

The Robins must quickly dust themselves down ahead of a trip to Huddersfield Giants next weekend.

Peters, whose side remain without a win in Super League, delivered a veiled warning to his players before their final night in Vegas.

"I'll leave it up to them," he said when asked about their plans.

"Do they think they've earned a drink? They can go have a drink if they want.

"They're men. Men make decisions, their own decisions. Most of the time, you'd like to think men make the right decisions around if they earned it or deserve it. It's up to them.

"They need to conduct themselves the right way. I'm not going to be saying, you're not going out – they're grown men.

"If they decide not to go out, great. If they decide to go out, well, it's up to them."