Hull KR chairman Paul Sewell admitted he underestimated the importance of securing silverware until they had acquired it.
The 40-year wait for a major trophy is over after the Robins won at Wembley, much to the delight of everyone associated with the club.
For Sewell, it was the culmination of just over three years of work following his arrival at the club, which has been seen as an important moment in the club’s progression.
Having now experienced it, Sewell admits the need was greater than he had anticipated.
“Things have been building solidly, you build it on firm foundations one block at a time, you diversify it so it isn’t just the first rugby team, but when you’re on this upward trajectory and you get so close as we’ve been the past two years, you realise that you’ve just got to put a trophy in the cabinet.
“I thought it was important before Saturday but now I see that it was uber important because now there’s a belief around the place. The players were under so much pressure. To have 20,000 fans travelling down to London is absolutely lovely but it just puts pressure on these boys. None of them tried to show it, but the relief of pressure when it was all over, I think that was there for all to see.
“We didn’t quite give the performance we wanted to give, there was pressure there and our opponents, they were underdogs and went under the radar. Warrington did brilliantly well, they’re a good side, and they challenged us enormously.
“But when you’re involved in elite sport, you know the longer you stick in a game, the better chance you’ve got of winning it. One of our elite sportsmen was Tom Davies, he could have given up that chase. He didn’t, and hence you see what we’ve all seen.”
For Sewell, introduced to rugby league by Neil Hudgell before his arrival as chairman after spending his life as a football supporter, Saturday has only added to his passion for the sport.
“It’s such a fabulous game,” he said. “I grew up when rugby was mud, Eddie Waring, forwards beating each other up, and football seemed a more flowing game to me.
“But now you see the athleticism and the pace and the skill, and that escaped me for years. But this past three or four years, and the closer you get to it, the more you realise what athletes these guys are.”