MIKEY LEWIS says Hull KR have redeemed themselves after winning the Super League Grand Final and avenging last year’s painful defeat to Wigan Warriors at Old Trafford.
The Robins were defeated 9-2 in 2024, but fought back this season and claimed a historic treble with an impressive 24-6 victory over Wigan.
“Words can’t describe how I’m feeling right now,” Lewis said after the match.
“I’m just proud for the boys, this playing group, the belief we built in this group. It’s been building for a couple of years now. We fell short last year against Wigan and we’ve come back for redemption and we got the job done today.”
Lewis won the Rob Burrow Award as man of the match with a scintillating performance that included a great first-half try.
“They’ve got fantastic players in their squad who ice the big moments in the game. We spoke about that as a spine, and we wanted to win more big moments than them and I feel like we did that to lift that trophy,” he said.
“I was just playing eyes up [for the try]. We wanted to do shift for shift plays on Wigan and I just felt like it was the time to run. I had the pace and time to run and just executed it. That’s a big moment. Willie had been speaking about icing the big moments and we did that.”
Hull KR came into the Grand Final aiming for a treble, but the halfback says he came into the decider in a relaxed frame of mind.
“Weirdly, I came into this game with no pressure, if that makes sense,” he said.
“Coming into the Challenge Cup, we hadn’t won a trophy for 40-odd years. I’d never felt so nervous throughout the game or the build-up to the game, ever. But I felt like it was a really relaxed group going into the Grand Final.
“We built up really nicely ahead of the game, we had a really good training session on Friday and spent time together. That’s the connection we’ve got and it showed out there tonight.”
Lewis said his side had faced criticism all year, but becoming only the fifth club to ever win Super League has given them enormous confidence.
“It’s the belief that we can actually do it,” he said.
“All the media were writing us off throughout the week – I know, because we haven’t won it, and rightly so. But we blocked that outside noise and we knew the belief in our squad. We just had to turn up and play for the full 80 minutes. We knew that if we could give a Hull KR performance, we wouldn’t go too far wrong.
“I know that I didn’t play as well as I could last year. Back then I was nowhere near in that big moment. But this is redemption and a second chance to show the world and probably just prove to myself that I can do it if I fully put my mind to it, and fully invest in it, and have the right mindset.
“I’ve spoken about mindset all week. I had the mindset to get the job done tonight and we did it as a group.”