HULL KR coach Craig Sandercock was left bemoaning his side's injury luck after losing full-back Greg Eden for the rest of the Super League campaign in their derby defeat.
Having already lost second rower Rhys Lovegrove before the match with a recurrence of his rib injury, Eden was forced off four minutes before half-time with a knee injury sustained moments before Jacob Miller scored the try that helped level the score at 6-6.
"Our luck can't get any worse," Sandercock told the Mail after his side's 38-20 defeat. "Greg is out for the rest of the season with a knee injury. It's disappointing especially coming into the game and you lose your back rower in the warm-up. And then you lose your full-back before half-time, but we had chances."
Rovers did create opportunities, but were guilty of not taking them. Hull, on the other hand, won by taking their own with a clinical show of ruthlessness.
However, Sandercock was also left to rue a number of individual errors that helped Hull score three tries in seven second-half minutes.
"A few poor individual errors in the second half cost us big time," reflected the Aussie. "Other than that, it was nip and tuck for long periods.
"The penalty try was 50/50. There were a few 50/50 calls out there and, of course, Hull KR don't get those calls."
Sandercock now has the tough task of finding a squad strong enough to challenge defending champions Leeds Rhinos at Headingley on Friday night.
His side dropped to eighth in the table, but Catalan did them a favour by beating Bradford at Odsal to leave a four-point gap between Rovers and Bradford in ninth.
"All I'm worried about is finding 17 fit players to play at Leeds on Friday night, that's all," Sandercock said.
"Of course we missed the eight players that didn't play. But we had no right to even compete against what Hull have in their team. Yet we were still in a position where we could have won that game against all the odds.
"I was happy with the way every one of my players played. I was really happy that we competed hard and we had no right to win or to be in that game at all.
"To come up short like we did was disappointing.
"A couple of uncharacteristic dropped balls and forward passes apparently cost us."
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