Hull KR star Micky McIlorum suffers injury blow in Wigan Warriors defeat as coach provides latest

The veteran hooker came off midway through the first half of Hull KR’s 28-12 defeat to his former club Wigan on Friday night and didn’t return to the field.

“I think he’s done his bicep,” Peters said in his post-match press conference. “It’s not looking good, we think it might be torn, which is not good for him because he’s played a massive part in what we’ve done (so far).

“In the first four or five weeks he’s sort only played 30 or 40 minutes but in terms of what he did in that period and what he does in training and the sheds, he’s been huge for us, so it’s going to be a big loss if he’s out for a period of time.”

McIlorum remained on the field for a scrum after his injury, and on the back of that, Wigan spotted an opportunity to go down the wing he was defending on, with Zach Eckersley racing 70 metres to score and bring the game level at the time.

There was confusion on the sidelines as Rovers looked to make a sub for McIlorum. The KR coaching staff were aware of McIlorum’s injury, with the England and Ireland international dropping the ball in an attempt to pass from dummy half, which had resulted in the scrum that led to Eckersley’s try.

“Micky was injured, so he should’ve come off, he should’ve gone down and come off,” Peters said. “So whatever the ruling is, I’ll dispute it, whether it is, because if you’ve got a player that’s torn their bicep and there’s a stoppage in play, then he should’ve gone down. So whether that’s on us as staff, then we need to look at that, or whether it’s a rule, then we need to look at that, but Micky should’ve gone down because he basically couldn’t have kept playing.

“He kept going and he couldn’t pass that ball, that ball went straight to the floor, so what we should have done is Micky should’ve gone to the ground and he should’ve been taken off the field because he’s injured, he’s got a torn bicep, but he ended up staying on the field and they scored the try.

“You can’t bring someone off at a scrum but we should be able to bring someone off if they’re injured. I was getting mixed reports on that, so we’ll find out what the actual ruling is but, for me, Micky should’ve come off the field. Let’s say if he had a broken leg or something happened like that, does he come off? Of course he does, it’s the same thing. He should’ve gone down, and said ‘I can’t play anymore’, he’s not going to come back on the field, so you make the change.

“Similarly, I know it wasn’t a scrum, but Tyler Dupree had an injury, the same sort of thing, you’ve got to stop because of player welfare, we’ve got to look after the player so, for me, that’s got to be on us as well. If we need to be going ‘stop the game, we need to get this player off’ and I’ll find out if they did say ‘well no, he needs to stay on’, well then it is (a) player welfare (issue).”

Peters revealed prop Sauaso Sue took a knock to his shoulder and will be assessed in the coming days, as will Mikey Lewis, who missed their defeat to Wigan with a groin injury. Hull KR face rivals Hull FC on Good Friday.