Hull KR and England hooker Jez Litten has spoken about the club’s 2025 treble-winning season, including the ‘reality check’ defeat that spurred the Robins to success.
The 2025 campaign will go down in history as the year of the Robin with Hull KR breaking their silverware drought in fashion by winning not just one, but three trophies.
Their Challenge Cup win over Warrington Wolves got the monkey off their back with Rovers having lost in the 2024 Grand Final and the 2023 Challenge Cup Final, but victory under the arches in the summer led to success at Old Trafford in October.
Jez Litten was crowned Hull KR Player of the Year with the hooker having an extraordinary season and he’s now spoken to Sky Sports to look back at 2025, but specifically the moments when he dared to dream that the treble was actually possible.
“When we beat Wigan away, I think that is when I felt like we’d sort of done it,” Litten said, speaking of the round 22 victory in August. Rovers won 10-6 thanks to a Dean Hadley try and a perfect kicking performance from Rhyse Martin.
Hull KR treble motivator revealed
What made the win so important in the eyes of Litten was the fact Hull KR lost late in the season the year prior to Wigan, falling to a 24-20 defeat on the road as two sin bins proved costly.
“I remember the year before that we got beat at Wigan away so to go there and do it towards the back end of the year felt like ‘we can do it, and we can do it in the business end of the year’.
“After winning that game, I felt that we had a right chance (at the treble).”
Speaking further on the importance of that win, Litten added: “We grew in the year, we’d won the Challenge Cup and we had won some big games but I feel like you’ve got to make that step of beating the best team at their ground.
“We were toe-to-toe for the League Leaders (Shield) and I felt like we had to go there and set a marker, and we did and it gave us that confidence to (believe) that we could go on and do it.”
The hooker also pointed to another game that inspired confidence in completing the treble with the game in question actually being the heavy defeat to Wakefield Trinity in round 26.
“At the back end of the year when Wakefield pumped us, I remember coming in after the game and I was doubting ourselves but we came in the next week and the boys were so positive,” Litten said.
“Willie was positive and we trained really well and it gave us that reality check of ‘do not drop your standards’, and it sort of gave us the kick up the bum that we needed.”
The Robins started their title defence with a shock loss to York Knights, something that could well serve as a ‘kick up the bum’ for the 2026 campaign and more importantly Thursday night’s World Club Challenge against Brisbane Broncos.
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