HULL KR have arguably landed the greatest signing of their Super League history, bringing in Sydney Roosters and New Zealand enforcer Jared Waerea-Hargreaves for 2025.
Waerea-Hargreaves has signed a one-year deal for the 2025 Super League season, but instead of it being Rovers, it could well have been Catalans Dragons.
Australian publication, Sydney Morning Herald, has reported that the 35-year-old held talks with Catalans Dragons boss Steve McNamara during the Rugby League World Cup held in England.
However, Waerea-Hargreaves would go on to sign a new one-year deal with the Roosters before rekindling his interest in a Super League move towards the back end of 2023.
As such, the Tricolours prop told Hull KR’s assistant coach Shaun Kenny-Dowall that he was willing to talk.
Rovers boss Willie Peters’ wife is also a diehard Roosters fan, and he once met the prop in Coogee and asked for a video to send to his partner Kera in a chance meeting.
“And I remember when we first moved over here, Kera said to me, ‘Are we any chance of getting Jared’, and I was like, ‘Sure, that’s never going to happen’,” Peters said.
“When there talk of Jared going to Catalans, and I said to ‘Skidsy’ (Kenny-Dowall), ‘We have to at least give it a shot’.
“Nothing came of it, but then at the end of last year, Skidsy came up to me and said Jared was keen to talk.
“We ended up speaking a couple of times. He was a man’s man, we were honest about what we wanted from him, and he told us how he wanted to come here, make a difference and win.
“Jared handled everything at his end with the Roosters. He went straight through the front door and was upfront with them. It didn’t take long to get the deal done at all.”
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