Hull KR<\/a> to defend their title against Wigan Warriors on Saturday, May 30.<\/p>\nBatchelor, 28, has become a key figure in Rovers\u2019 rise and earned glowing praise from captain Elliot Minchella, who insists the forward remains one of Super League\u2019s most underrated stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cBatch has been great. He\u2019s probably the most consistent performer for us, I\u2019d say,\u201d said loose forward Minchella.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe probably goes under the radar to a lot of people, but definitely not within our club. He values the effort areas, and does all the dirty work – not the glamorous stuff. He obviously scored two in the semi-final, but he\u2019s not known for that – he\u2019s known for his clean up in defence, and all the effort stuff that the average watcher may not notice. Us as team-mates, we value that the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s also a great leader, and that\u2019s grown over the last couple of years. He helps me a lot, and is someone that I lean on. We work together, and he\u2019s a very valuable member of our squad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Batchelor missed just four games during Hull KR\u2019s historic 2025 campaign and has again been an influential figure this season, with the Robins\u2019 resurgence lifting them into fourth place in the Super League table with a game in hand. They face Leigh Leopards this weekend in Round 11.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of those players you want to play with – we\u2019ve got a few of those,\u201d Minchella continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cBatch and Dean Hadley probably fall into the same category, and are two of the most respected people at our club. They enable people to do the special things, but they do special things in their own rights that go unnoticed. Those two guys lead the effort areas every week.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s toughness for me – doing the tough stuff, consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n
Less than 24 hours after securing a place at Wembley, Minchella, 30, was in London alongside Wigan counterpart Liam Farrell and the men\u2019s Challenge Cup trophy to promote the double-header later this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great defensive performance against Warrington,\u201d Minchella added. \u201cWe grafted hard for each other, and we wanted to win and knew what the prize was – coming to Wembley in a few weeks to play Wigan.<\/p>\n
“We were really disciplined, and came out on the winning side – it was a pleasing afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glowing praise for Hull KR’s ‘under the radar’ star. James Batchelor scored twice in Hull KR’s Challenge Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":956445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[5013,112834,4151,6531,79,6533,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-956444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-challenge-cup","9":"tag-hull-kr","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-rugby-league","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-super-league","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116565808857208159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"James](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0_AMM_1088JPG.jpg\")
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