Hull KR's Mikey Lewis and Dean Hadley on brink of joining elite group of Hull-born players

Hull Kingston Rovers' Mikey Lewis and Dean Hadley are both closing in on joining a small group of Hull-born players who have made more than 100 appearances for the Red and Whites in Super League matches.

With pre-season ahead of 2025 on the horizon, Hadley is on 96 and Lewis is on 90 so they are not far away from adding their names to a small group of centurion players that includes Kris Welham, Jason Netherton, Josh Hodgson, Craig Hall and Jez Litten, with the latter achieving the feat last season. Welham is the Hull-born player who has made the most Super League appearances for Hull KR on 166. There are 20 Hull-born players who have made more than 30 Super League appearances for Hull KR.

In the vast majority of seasons that Rovers have been in Super League, they have given a Hull-born player his first taste of life as a red and white in the league, although openings have been rare in recent times with the club rising up the table and first-team jerseys often being hard-earned. In the 2024 campaign though, there was boyhood fan Jack Brown, who was signed from Hull FC. The year before that, they fielded Lennie Ellis, Leo Tennison and Louix Gorman away against Wigan Warriors when the squad was rotated ahead of the Challenge Cup final.

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When Rovers went up to Super League for the first time back in 2007, Hull-born players who featured for them included the likes of Welham, Paul Cooke, Jason Netherton, Kirk Netherton and Chaz I'Anson. It took until the turn of the decade in 2010 for more Hull-born players to get regular chances in the red and white in Super League, with some being signed from elsewhere. Scott Taylor, Liam Salter and George Lawler were examples of players who were given their professional breakthrough by Rovers before eventually featuring regularly for them. But it has never been easy to make the breakthrough into becoming a regular in the Super League era.

In 2019, although it was not clear at the time, three Hull-born players would feature for Rovers for the first time and eventually go on to notable success - Lewis, Hadley and Litten, with the latter two having been recruited following stints at Hull FC. Jordan Abdull followed a similar path to Hadley and Litten when he joined the following year. In 2022, Rovers gave a taste of Super League action to Connor Barley and Zach Fishwick but they have had to bide their time since then with the club going from strength to strength in reaching the Challenge Cup final then Grand Final.

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