From chugging up the notorious slope at the Fox’s Biscuits Stadium in Batley to stepping out in front of 65,000 fans at Old Trafford in Saturday night’s Grand Final, David Hodgson has been at the heart of Hull KR’s remarkable rise towards the Betfred Super League summit.

Hull-born Hodgson came out of retirement in 2017 to aid Rovers as they got to grips with a season in the second tier following their heartbreaking relegation from Super League, and admits back then there seemed little prospect of competing for the domestic game’s greatest prize.

“If you’d said when we were pushing up hills and packing out tiny grounds that just over six years later we’d be playing at Old Trafford in Grand Final, I think most people would have laughed,” Hodgson, Rovers’ long-serving assistant coach, told the PA news agency.

“But even back in those days that was the long-term plan. No-one likes getting relegated but it gave us a fresh opportunity and it was one we took full advantage of. Neil (Hudgell, Rovers’ long-time owner) backed us massively in that relegation period, and gave us the chance to turn things around.”

Hodgson has plenty more reasons to regard Saturday’s clash with defending champions and quadruple-seeking Wigan as a special occasion. His illustrious playing career peaked in two Grand Final appearances with Wigan in 2000 and 2003, the first of which saw him team up with a then 21-year-old Willie Peters.

It was a relationship that would reignite when Peters swept through the doors at Craven Park at the start of the 2023 campaign to put the finishing touches to a patient process of revival initiated chiefly by the unstinting backing of Hudgell plus Peters’ immediate predecessors, Tim Sheens and Tony Smith.

“I only played with Willie for a year before he went back to Australia and you never really think about whether your paths will cross again,” Hodgson added. “We were both very young, and we were just happy to have the chance to be at Wigan and try to win trophies.”

Hodgson returned home from Lancashire, via three years at Huddersfield, and signed a three-year deal with Rovers in 2012, which appeared to mark the end of his playing career until second-tier status afforded him the chance to lace back on the boots in tandem with his coaching duties.

“There have been some dark times but the club has slowly been getting better over the years,” Hodgson said. “There has always been a process of building and now we’re at the point where we have massive plans to improve facilities from the top right through to the academy and scholarship levels.

“It might not have always seemed likely, but throughout the journey the goal for everyone at the club was to reach a Grand Final. Luckily we have a very passionate owner who has always believed in us and I think that has definitely rubbed off on everyone else at the club.

“Whatever happens on Saturday night we’ve just got to keep that consistency building, keep striving to get better each year, and hopefully that will continue to mean that the league table will look after itself at the end of the season.”