As Joe Burgess raced away in the final moments to put the seal on an unprecedented season in Hull KR\u2019s 143-year history, it was difficult to know where to look first as decadesof frustration poured out all around Old Trafford.<\/p>\n
The Robins began the campaign as rugby league\u2019s great bridesmaids. Without a major trophy in 40 years and with a litany of failures at the final hurdle, you wondered whether this talented group of players could ever shake off the tag of nearly men.<\/p>\n
That moment finally arrived earlier this summer when KR won the Challenge Cup but the one they really wanted was a first league title since 1985. Freed of the pressures of the past at last, Willie Peters and his side underlined in no uncertain terms on the biggest stage why Rovers are now Super League\u2019s premier side.<\/p>\n
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Robins did to Wigan what Wigan have become accustomed to doing to opposition sides throughout their own era of dominance. After a nervy start, Rovers were far superior in almost every aspect and once they went ahead, they never looked like surrendering that advantage. Against a team as good as Wigan, that is about as high a compliment as you can pay them.<\/p>\n
Wigan\u2019s Bevan French drops the ball when over the try line as he is tackled by Hull KR\u2019s Mikey Lewis. Photograph: Lee Parker\/CameraSport\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The contest had already been decided by the time Burgess seared away in the closing minutes. Peters, the man who has masterminded this remarkable turnaround to drag a club who were bottom of the Super League as recently as 2020 to the treble, hugged almost every member of staff he could lay his hands on.<\/p>\n
The Rovers substitutes fell to their knees and the 20,000-plus KR fans, many of whom could have never imagined one trophy, let alone three, were sent into delirium. They are only the fifth club to win the Grand Final, with Leeds the last team to win it for the first time in 2004.<\/p>\n
There can be no complaints about the outcome, with Rovers sensational when it mattered most: producing the kind of display Wigan have done in the biggest games in recent years. \u201cThere\u2019s only been four teams who\u2019ve won the treble and nobody has won the treble twice, which tells you how hard it is,\u201d Peters said. \u201cThey have been absolutely amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The contest could and perhaps should have taken a very different outlook in the first half, but for some rare profligacy from Wigan as opportunities for Liam Farrell and Bevan French came and went. There was a fair argument to say it should have been 12-0 to Wigan and with their record in finals that would have been commanding.<\/p>\n
Hull KR\u2019s Joe Burgess dives over in the corner despite Jai Field\u2019s tackle. Photograph: Richard Sellers\/PA<\/p>\n
The game swung on a pivotal moment as Wigan\u2019s Brad O\u2019Neill was sent to the sin-bin after a dangerous tackle on Tyrone May. Within two minutes, Hull KR went ahead as the outstanding Mikey Lewis cut through to score between the posts. With O\u2019Neill still off the field the Robins went further in front as a fine passage of play led to the former Wigan winger Burgess touching down.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Rhyse Martin missed the conversion but suddenly, the reigning champions were scrambling. A penalty from Adam Keighran on the stroke of half-time got Wigan on the board and when Harry Smith scored shortly after the restart, a comeback appeared to be on the cards. But Hull KR quelled it as a penalty from Martin nudged their lead back out to six points.<\/p>\n They then scored the decisive try as Jez Litten finished a fine move to leave Wigan behind by 12 and, quite frankly, shellshocked. This was an off-colour night from them, and they could have no complaints about the outcome, a point their head coach, Matt Peel, made post-match.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s tempting to look back on things we wish we\u2019d done differently,\u201d Peet said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t do what we\u2019d love to do but you\u2019ve got to credit Hull KR for their energy in those periods. Full credit to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Wigan were bidding to secure a third successive Super League crown but this never felt like it would be their night \u2013 especially when it was revealed after the game that Hull KR\u2019s hooker, Michael McIlorum, played through the pain with a fractured ankle.<\/p>\n Burgess\u2019 try with three minutes left merely confirmed what everyone had started to expect over the course of the evening: there is a new force in Super League at long last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Joe Burgess raced away in the final moments to put the seal on an unprecedented season in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-194091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}