Henry Hope Opens Up About Academy Life At Hull KR

Henry Hope to spoke to hullkr.co.uk on pre-season, the adversity the overcome to make his Academy debut and previewed the junior Robins clash against Warrington Wolves this Saturday.

Academy Player, Henry Hope has been at Hull KR for two and a half years after moving up from Scholarship to Academy and reflected on his first pre-season with U18s:

‘It was good, personally I made a lot of development over the pre-season. There was a lot of helpful people coming in and helping us, we had Peta Hiku and SKD’s (Shaun Kenny-Dowall) for most of it and that helped me develop my own game a lot and it feels like the most progress I’ve made since being here.

“We learned a lot from the older lads. As a team we really developed a lot, we turned from a couple of lads who had just met coming up from scholarship and now we’re all the same team. It didn’t take long for us to find the bond we have now where we’re all playing for the same team and fighting for one another.”

During the pre-season, the winger had caught an illness that set back the beginning of his season:

“Personally, I had a really good preseason and it looked really promising, then two weeks before the first game of the season I caught an illness. I missed two weeks of training, missed work for two weeks and I lost 10 KG.

“So, I came back, probably when I wasn’t ready, maybe a week early and I was still badly. I missed the first game of the season, the Leigh game, because I hadn’t gained the weight back in time and then I missed the Wigan game because I wasn’t back to 100% and then came back in the FC game.’

Henry Hope graduated from the Scholarship team last season to make his way up to the Academy side and found that the support and community here at Hull KR led to a smooth transition between the two sides:

“The groups that Jase (Academy Head Coach Jason Netherton) put us in - the legends groups where a group of forty lads were split into four groups of ten and the winners got to go out for breakfasts with the team were very telling.

“It helped grow my bond with particular players, I had a great bond with the other lads that had come up with me because we were all from first year last season and then you just talk to them. I get here nice and early for training so we spend more time outside of the game together and it’s more than a team at this point. I consider some of these lads my closest and best friends, and people that I enjoy spending a lot of my time with so it’s really good for us.”

Hull KR Academy have played three fixtures in the regular season, the first game against Leigh ended 34-8 to the Robins, a narrow win against Wigan away saw the result at 20-18 and the recent derby win means the Academy have had an unbeaten start to the season:

“Just seeing my team win is amazing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go to the Wigan game due to illness but I remember seeing the score come up on Instagram and I just jumped, I was so happy for the team. It’s just seeing the team that I represent do what they do week in, week out do well. It’s an amazing feeling week in, week out.”

The 20-16 Derby Win against Hull FC away saw the Academy side claim victory from their across-the-city rivals and marked the first Academy Derby win since before the pandemic:

“The derby itself was incredible. I wanted to make sure my step up from Scholarship to Academy was good and that I wouldn’t be one of the feeder players or the players that doesn’t make an impact. I like making an impact and to come up and the Derby be my first Academy game and then go on and win against FC which we haven’t beaten since the pandemic is amazing. That game couldn’t have gone better for me personally.”

Looking ahead, the 17-year-old winger knows that this season can be tough but has set standards and goals for himself that he aims to achieve:

‘Personally, I’d like to play as many games as possible. Whether that’s Academy, Reserves, Community games, that’s fine. As many games to get better on my game and be a good player in my position, it’s still new to me. I’m not still 100% comfortable with it so once I get to 110-120% I’ll be alright.

“For the team, everyone wants to be one of the best. You want to be one of those teams where teams don’t want to play us and people hate coming to us. At Scholarship level last year we created a reputation as a top three, top two teams. I want Hull KR to be a big name from us up to the First Team.”

This weekend our Academy face Warrington Wolves at home, another unbeaten side in the Academy League:

“Warrington is a big game, probably our biggest game yet. Warrington have had some good wins and high scoring wins but if we stick to our process and focus on us as a collective team rather than on our opposition, we can succeed this weekend.”

Our Academy are back in action at home this weekend for their fixture against Warrington Wolves at Sewell Group Craven Park with kick off at 1pm.