BY JOHN DAVIDSON
Hull KR upset the apple cart in Super League this year in a way that its rivals may seek to follow.
In the history of the competition, championship-winning clubs in the UK have always relied on vital homegrown talent to get them over the line. Those who have come through their own academy, been brought up through their own pathways and been developed from within have played crucial roles in their success.
Only four clubs had taken out the grand final in the past three decades, with Hull KR in 2025 making it now five.
St Helens, Bradford, Leeds and Wigan have all had a core of local talent to depend on and built the rest of their roster around.
For Saints, who won grand finals in 1999, 2000, 2002 and 2006, the side was built around homegrown products like Tommy Martyn, Paul Wellens, Keiron Cunningham, Chris Joynt and Tony Stewart. Paul Sculthorpe, signed at a young age from Warrington, Sean Long, signed from Wigan, and Ade Gardner, signed from Barrow, were other key figures in their run of titles.
For St Helens’ four-in-a-row run between 2019 and 2022, it was Tommy Makinson, James Roby, Jonny Lomax, Mark Percival, Morgan Knowles, Jack Welsby, Matty Lees and Regan Grace who came to the fore, supported by Alex Walmsley, Louie-McCarthy Scarsbrook, Lachlan Coote, Kevin Naiqama and several others.
Bradford claimed three titles between 2001 and 2005. At the core of those teams were homebred products like Leon Pryce, Brian McDermott, Stuart Fielden, Jamie Peacock and Stuart Reardon, accompanied by recruits Paul Anderson, James Lowes, Robbie Paul, Lee Radford, Shontayne Hape and Lesley Vainikolo.
It was the same at nearby Leeds, who won eight grand finals from 2004 to 2017. That trophy-laden period was built around the club’s famed ‘Golden Generation’ – Kevin Sinfield, Rob Burrow, Danny McGuire, Jamie Jones-Buchanan, Ryan Bailey and Carl Ablett. In the early stages it was local products like Keith Senior, Chev Walker, Matt Diskin, Lee Smith and Danny Ward, and later on it was Ryan Hall, Kallum Watkins and Stevie Ward. All homegrown, all coming through the academy.
There was also crucial involvement from recruits such as Peacock, Kylie Leuluia, Joel Moon, Brett Delaney and others at Leeds, but the core were academy products and local juniors that remained the constant.
Turn to Wigan and it is unsurprisingly the same. The Warriors’ won five titles between 2010 and 2024 and again the homegrown element was key – first it was Sam Tomkins, Michael McIllorum, Liam Farrell, Sean O’Loughlin and Joel Tomkins, and later it was Josh Charnley, Lee Mossop, Oliver Gildart, George Williams and Sam Powell.
More recently, in 2023 and 2024 the club-bred talent coming to the fore has included Liam Marshall, Harry Smith, Brad O’Neill, Morgan Smithies, Ethan Harvard and Junior Nsemba. This is not to discount the impact of people in the past who were brought into the cluv from overseas like Pat Richards and Willie Isa, or more recently Bevan French and Jai Field, but merely to explain the value of producing your own players.
The importance of bringing through your own talent cannot be understated.
Firstly, it creates connection between individual players that grows as they go through the scholarship, academy, reserves and finally the first-team ranks together. It creates greater bonds and relationships, improving the wider team ethic and culture.
Secondly, it creates greater combinations and partnerships between players, who also get to know that club’s DNA and specific style of play, therefore improving cohesion and performance on the field. Thirdly, it helps with the salary cap as homegrown players are counted as a dispensation. Fourthly, it also benefits the salary cap as local juniors are more likely to accept a lower salary than they could possibly get at another club, because they grew up as a fan of that club and want to play alongside their mates.
The lure of representing your boyhood club remains strong.
And fifthly, it can also prove as a lucrative revenue stream for on-selling talent to the NRL, as Wigan and others have shown. In recent times, the astronomical growth of the NRL salary cap compared to Super League’s has made this more prevalent.
Now, relying only on homegrown talent for success is not enough. This must be supported and backed up by good recruitment – both local and international. Wigan are unlikely to have won their titles without Tommy Leuluia, Richards and French, as were Leeds without Peacock, Leuluia, Brent Webb and others.
It is all about balance, about the ying and the yang. You need both to win. You can’t have one without the other to get silverware.
But in the 30-odd years of Super League no one has been able to win the comp without that core of local juniors. That vital backbone developed within. That is, until Hull KR broke the mold.
The Robins not only won Super League for the first time this year, they also won the League Leaders’ Shield and the Challenge Cup, claiming a historic treble. And they remarkably did it with just one local junior starting regularly in their ranks – halfback Mikey Lewis.
One.
Look at the 18 players who were in Hull KR’s Old Trafford squad. 18 of whom 11 were English and seven were foreign. One from France in Arthur Mourgue, four from Australia in Rhyse Martin, Jai Whitbread, Tyrone May and Jesse Sue, and two from New Zealand in Peta Hiku and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.
Of the 11 English players – Tom Davies, Gildart, McIllorum and Joe Burgess were all Wigan juniors, James Batchelor came through at Wakefield, captain Elliot Minchella and 18th man Jack Broadbent at Leeds, and Sam Luckley at Newcastle Thunder.
Vitally, Jez Litten and Dean Hadley are from Hull, but from the other side of the city. With Hull KR’s academy only producing Lewis, there has been smart recruitment to lure Litten and Hadley to the red and white side, giving them opportunities where they saw none at Hull FC.
You look at the rest of Hull KR’s roster in 2025 and there are more players produced by other clubs – Danny Richardson (St Helens), Jack Brown (Hull FC), Kelepi Tanginoa (Australia), Lee Kershaw (Wakefield), Eribe Doro (Warrington), Bill Leyland (London), Leon Ruan (Doncaster/Leeds) and Noah Booth (Warrington).
There were just five who had come through the Robins’ own pathway in the 2025 roster – Zach Fishwick, Louix Gorman, Leo Tennison, Harvey Horne and Lennie Ellis, and Ellis has since gone to Sheffield, and with Tennison’s future uncertain. All are project players and received limited minutes this season.
It is clear that several years ago Hull KR identified the issue with their own academy system and production line, and have tried to rectify it. Not only have they tried to bring more local juniors through, but they have also taken a specific approach to lure youngsters with potential away from other clubs and get them to Craven Park. Think Matty Storton, Ethan Ryan and Rowan Milnes from Bradford in 2020, Luis Johnson from Warrington in 2021, Corey Hall from Wakefield in 2023 and so on.
Some have worked, some haven’t.
Allied to this has been the recruitment of experienced and talented veterans from other Super League sides – Coote, Martin, Matt Parcell, Batchelor, May and Tanginao – and a sprinkling of firepower from down under – Hiku, Sue and Waerea-Hagreaves. Some just wanted a change of scenery, a new opportunity, a bigger payday, others a chance to play week-in-week-out when they were not getting it.
To assemble a championship-winning roster this way, without that core of local juniors, and with more of a ‘Moneyball’ approach is undeniably difficult. It requires outstanding cap recruitment and retention, and extremely shrewd player management. Brilliant scouting and talent identification. It also requires a special coach to weave it all together and get all the different parts firing in the one direction. A coach who can get the best of his players, and also develop them and take some of them to new heights.
Not all coaches are able to do this.
But significantly, Willie Peters and Hull KR have done it this year. It gives hope to other clubs in Super League without strong academies that the formula can work. That you can win even without a powerful pathway behind you.
The dynamics of English rugby league have shifted. Bill James would approve.