Mikey Lewis owned the stage in a potentially career-defining performance that brought Hull KR the treble.

“IT’S all about winning in the little moments,” said Mikey Lewis, four days before the Super League Grand Final.

“You might be waiting all game for a moment and when that time comes you’ve got to get your execution right.

“It’s about doing that on the biggest stage and hopefully I can do that this week.”

Hull KR’s maestro certainly delivered, owning the Old Trafford spotlight in a potentially career-defining performance against Wigan.

As it happens, he didn’t have to wait all game – a quarter was enough. It was in the 20th minute that he split the Wigan defence, his dummy seeing Bevan French move out – so nearly a reverse of last year’s sole Grand Final try – and Liam Farrell unprepared to commit to the tackle. Through burst Lewis for the opener, and his side never looked back.

Then again, you might say Lewis didn’t wait at all. This was a halfback in a hurry, constantly demanding the ball, jinking into gaps, trying to make things happen and often succeeding.

To watch an English star, at 24, so at ease on such an occasion, so lively and frankly so talented, should have been a delight to all but those with the most cherry-tinted glasses.

“Mikey Lewis has arrived,” hailed his coach, Willie Peters. “Moments don’t get bigger than that and he owned that first half.

“He has copped a lot and does cop a lot but it shows the type of player he is and what he’s about.”

Hull KR have also truly arrived. Considered underdogs, largely through historical precedent suggesting Grand Final experience counts over anything else, they not only won but did so by a margin – 24-6 – that very few could have anticipated.

They had previously struggled on the big stage, failing to fire in the 2023 Challenge Cup final against Leigh and gradually worn down by Wigan 12 months ago.

In June, they needed a last-gasp try to beat Warrington at Wembley after one of their poorest performances of the season. Even the League Leaders’ Shield finishing line was crossed with something of a limp.

A succession of errors in the opening 15 minutes, which only went unpunished thanks to two big Wigan chances being blown by Farrell and French, suggested more stage fright.
Lewis’ intervention, and the hour of class which followed, flipped that script. This is now a team of bona-fide winners, and any doubters have been decisively silenced.

Words can’t do justice to the job done by the staff, coaches and squad to lift Hull KR to these heights. From no trophies in 40 years to a treble-winning campaign is an unprecedented turnaround, all led by the motto of ‘good to great’.

Peters explained: “Last year I asked the players what is going to determine growth, and they said winning a trophy. We got beat in the Grand Final and we did some good things that year, they grew throughout the year, but we needed to be great to win silverware.

“We changed our theme this year. It was about being great. The boys had three pillars to what a great team looks like, around how they act and who they are every single day. When you do that, the rewards come and performances like that come.”

Lewis has also gone from ‘good to great’, relinquishing his Man of Steel but gaining so much more. Silverware, yes, but also personal growth – his kicking game in the Grand Final, for example, was vastly superior to the same contest a year ago.

“Weirdly, I came into this game with no pressure, if that makes sense,” he explained.

“Coming into the Challenge Cup (final), we hadn’t won a trophy for 40 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.

“All the media were writing us off throughout the week because we haven’t won it (before), 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’d spoken about mindset all week. I had the mindset to get the job done, and we did it as a group.”

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 514 (November 2025)