OUR performance in the win over St Helens was the perfect tonic after what was a very hectic week.
To lose two players and the coach has got to be a pretty unique situation for any club and I would bet that there were more than a few of our fans who were a bit worried leading into the game.
With regards to losing Wayne Ulugia and Jonny Walker, I would say that as Hull KR players we have certain standards that we have to meet and, unfortunately, these boys fell short of those standards and paid the price.
Luckily, they are both young enough to learn from their mistakes and I hope they take this setback and come back as better people and players.
The loss of these two players takes the total to five first-team players whose services we no longer have for the season.
Sean Gleeson (retired), Justin Poore (injured) and Jamie Langley (injured) are also no longer available to us.
All of these players would arguably be in our starting 17 on any given week too, so it does make the situation more alarming.
Of course, we also lost coach Craig Sandercock this week and, obviously, the board have their reasons for that decision so it's not for me to comment, other than to wish Craig and his family all the best for the future.
As is often the case when a team loses their coach, you see a spike in performance and that's certainly what happened with us against the league leaders. The challenge for us now is to continue this form.
In Chris Chester, we have a coach who has been part of the club for many years. He knows the players well and knows what he wants from us to make sure that we keep our feet on the ground and work hard.
We spoke on Saturday about the final nine games being a journey and making sure we start enjoying our rugby and having smiles on our faces along the way.
Thanks for your awesome support on Sunday once again. We were all buzzing about it after the game and we really appreciate it.
We made a good start against Saints and we'll be working very hard this week to make sure that we have the same level of performance at Leeds this Friday.
