Former Hull KR head coach Justin Morgan will be a keen spectator on Saturday afternoon
Neil Hudgell celebrates promotion with Justin Morgan(Image: Rob Stebbing)
It will be midnight in Canberra by the time Saturday’s Challenge Cup final kicks off, but that won’t stop Justin Morgan from settling down with a beer in hand to see how his old club gets on.
Following Rovers’ fortunes isn’t always that easy on the other side of the world, given the time difference, but the former Robins boss tries to keep as close an eye as possible on what’s going on at Craven Park.
And, it’s fair to say Morgan is readying himself for a late night this weekend, as KR compete in another Challenge Cup final.
It’s been 15 years since the Australian left east Hull, but there are so many familiar faces still at the club such as Neil Hudgell and Paul Lakin and the 50-year-old still recognises so many of the old guard in the stands on match day, too.
“The part that I really enjoy is when you’re watching the highlights or you’re watching the games on the TV, the people on the East Stand, there’s a lot of the same faces,” Morgan told Hull Live. “They’re a little bit older than what I remember, but a lot of the same faces.
“Now, unfortunately, there’s a few face that aren’t there anymore, that I know that through friends that have passed away, but it’s nice to see so many of the Rovers fans still there in the East Stand.
“I’m just so happy for, for Neil and everyone else has felt involved, but especially Neil. After last year’s Grand Final and after the World Cup Challenge, I sent him some messages, I was really proud of him, and proud of what the club has achieved.”
Before current boss Willie Peters, Morgan was considered by many to be the club’s best coach of the modern era, with the Australian arriving in 2005 before taking the Robins to Super League for the very first time in 2006.
With the success of the 1970s and 1980s long gone, Rovers spent the early years of the 21st century as a sleeping giant in the doldrums of English rugby league. Morgan was the man to bring that 17-year stint outside the top flight to an end.
And the success kept on coming. Under the Australian, KR not only established themselves as a Super League side, they became contenders, going deep into the play-offs on a couple of occasions and overtaking their bitter rivals Hull FC as the number one club in the city for a period.
The finished fourth in 2009 and that was the first of three play-off finishes in a row for the east Hull club.
Ultimately, though, Morgan left Craven Park at the end of the 2011 season and until Willie Peters took over the club in 2023, the Robins struggled for consistency and traction.
“I think two seasons stand out, obviously, the promotion and then the survival,” Morgan said, reflecting on his time at KR.
“Some people forget that Catalans got promoted at the same time, and they had basically a golden ticket. They weren’t going to get relegated, so you had to finish second last or higher to make sure that you survived.
“I think Neil and I, when we spoke about the strategy, you look over the years that a lot of teams that got promoted, often recycled some of the players from the teams that got relegated and we decided, we’re going to go with everyone that’s got us there.
“We added a little bit of sprinkling of some other players as well, I think maybe four or five in that first Super League season and I think we were top of the table after a month or something like that.
“I think that strategy, that Neil, myself, Paul, and everyone that was there, came up with, thinking well, this team and this club is based on pride, and the people of east Hull. We needed to represent the community.
“And I think that crew of players, they should take a great deal of pride in what they’re seeing with the team now, because they helped along the journey. They obviously haven’t helped what’s happened in the last three or four seasons, but they helped the dominoes start to fall.
“They helped us have identity about what the club was about. So, yeah, I hope the 2006 crew and everyone in between is really proud of what the team’s doing now.”
Indeed, even the most optimistic Rovers fan could have imagined that two decades on KR would be coming off the back a treble, a World Club Challenge win and gunning for back to back Challenge Cup wins.
However, the transformation that has occurred at Craven Park over the last four seasons is enough for Morgan to dish out the ultimate praise for Willie Peters, likening his impact at Craven Park to Roger Millward’s.
“He had a vision for what he wanted for the club, and obviously followed it quite closely, listening to what he said,” Morgan added on Peters. “He’s an humble human and from what people tell me, he’s a very hard worker but to achieve what he’s achieved, and to do it, in that relatively short period…
“He’s been phenomenal for the club. The best coach in the modern era that Hull KR has seen.
“Roger Millward obviously is a legend and it’s very hard to compare people from across different eras, but I think what Roger did for the club, Willie certainly can put himself in that same bracket as Roger.”
So, will Rovers get over the line on Saturday against Wigan Warriors and go back to back in the Challenge Cup?
“I just think across the park, they’ve got nice balance, they’ve got good experience, and I think you look over the way they’ve played over the last three or four weeks, they’re building quite nicely,” he said, when asked for a prediction.
“I think he’s done that well. That’s not by chance, by the way, he’s planned that with his staff and his high performance team to make sure that they’re peaking at the right time, and I think they’ll be too good. I think they’ll be too good and too fast across the field.
“I think it’ll be close like most Challenge Cups are for the first 50-60 minutes, but I think in the end, they’ll win by at least a couple of tries.”