Sam Luckley is hoping to earn more love from boss Willie Peters on his home Hull KR bow.
The no-nonsense prop was described as the “gamechanger” after coming off the bench to help fire last week’s win at his former club Salford. Ahead of Friday’s game against Leigh, Luckley, 27, insisted: “You don’t really think about things like that. You just do your job the best you can so it’s always nice to get special comments like that from your coach and your peers.
“But it was brilliant. Obviously I had a bit of mixed emotions as I was at Salford last year and it was my first Super League club so it was good going back and seeing some familiar faces. I’m still pals with them so it was nice to see them but also good to get my Hull KR debut and kick-start my campaign.”
Rovers are hoping for a third win on the bounce against Leigh who are yet to get off the mark since earning promotion. But Luckley, whose powerful charges helped KR overturn a 4-0 interval lead to win 24-10 at Salford, said: “Consistency is key. We’ll just take it week by week. It doesn’t matter who we play. We won’t have the mindset that we should win. I wouldn’t under-estimate Leigh at all and they went close against Salford when they played them. They have strike all over the park so we know it’ll be a tough test.”
And Geordie Luckley - a diehard Newcastle United fan - can’t wait to get out in front of the Craven Park supporters for the first time. He said: "They’re mental aren’t they? They turnout in numbers. It was brilliant to watch in our first home game against Wigan. They never stopped singing, a bit like the Geordies.
“I am loving it at Rovers. The group here is outstanding. Everyone is very welcoming. At Salford, we just dug in really well. We didn’t start how we intended to but only being 4-0 down gave us some confidence considering we’d not had any ball. And we really started firing in that second half. Now we want to get better again against Leigh.”
