Agar believes wounded Wildcats are well prepared to bounce back against Rovers

Agar described the 40-6 loss against the Bulls as the “most disappointing performance” of his tenure at the club so far.

The visit of Hull KR to the Rapid Solicitors Stadium on Saturday (kick-off 5.45pm) provides Wakefield with the chance to hit back - and Agar believes his men are well prepared to do exactly that.

“I do genuinely think the players were as down and upset about the performance as we were,” he said.

“There’s a general feeling that we’re going to do something about it.

“It might not improve to the level we want it to overnight but we’ll work as hard as we can and as fast as we can to get it to the right level.”

Agar pulled no punches in his assessment of Sunday’s loss at the Provident Stadium, laying the blame with his forward pack and with a poor attitude within his squad.

He has been impressed with the response of his men on the training field and hopes that can be put into practice against a Rovers side who will also be out to bounce back following an opening-day defeat.

“What you’ve got to do is try and make sure [the poor performances] are kept to an absolute minimum and we show an adequate response from it,” he commented.

“I’d like to think that is going to happen this week.

“We’ve certainly shown it in training but I’ve had no qualms with the way we’ve trained.”

He added: “We’ve looked at it, we’ve put it to bed, we feel we’ve trained around it and we’re hoping we’ve made the necessary adjustments.

“It might not be picture perfect overnight but I think it’s going to be a damn sight better than it was last week.”

Agar believes Rovers will be a strong side this season and knows Craig Sandercock’s side will also want to hit back following their defeat against Catalans Dragons in Round 1.

“I’ve watched a couple of their games and I thought they were quite impressive against Hull FC [in pre-season]”, he said.

“I thought they were physically very strong and well marshalled around the park as they always are by Michael Dobson.

“They also have a player in Cory Paterson who is new to the competition and he very much looks to be a strong go-to man for them. He’s got a bag of tricks, he’s got a terrific off-load in the tackle, he likes to get the ball early and play a little bit with it as well.

“They were out-muscled at times last week by a very ruthless and relentless Catalan team so they’ll probably have had a similar week to us and probably feeling a little bit how we were.”

The Wildcats head coach is also looking forward to playing on home soil for the first time in Super League XVIII.

“We loved playing at home last year,” said Agar.

“We had some outstanding days here last year.

“Our crowd got right behind us and stuck with us all year and we want to recreate a little bit of that this year too.”