Mikey Lewis says ‘that kind of talk’ with parents kept him in rugby league

MIKEY Lewis is one game from a fairytale Grand Final appearance – if he inspires Hull KR to stun Catalans, parents Andy and Sarah will be the people to thank.

For if it was not for them sitting down with their son and talking him out of giving up rugby league, he would probably be watching before another day at work.

Half-back Lewis may be one of the rising stars of Super League and his virtuoso try against Warrington helped seal Rovers’ shock semi-final spot.

But rewind just five years and he was wondering whether it was worth it. Unable to get picked up by a club, he was playing at amateur side West Hull.

Wise words from his mum and dad, though, kept him going and the rewards are flooding in.

“I nearly chucked it,” admitted Lewis, 20. “But my family knew how much I wanted to be a rugby player. I’ve wanted to be one since I was five-years-old.

“We had that kind of talk a few times. I said, ‘I don’t know whether I want to do it any more.’ They’d say, ‘Just go and be yourself and be happy.’

“So I stuck to it as I loved it. I wasn’t happy at the time but I found that love again when I was 16 or 17.

“They pushed me to my limit. If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know where I’d be. Now I want to repay them.”

Lewis’ emergence has been almost as dramatic as Hull KR’s this season. Many before the season had Tony Smith’s men going down.

Now they are 80 minutes from Old Trafford, the new star insists the belief was always at Craven Park.

He added: “It was doable but we just had to have that belief and determination to get there.

“Hearing us written off made us determined to be better and prove to ourselves we want to be away from the bottom.

“You can’t listen to outsiders as they don’t know what you’re building. We knew we had the squad to not be at the bottom.

“And we didn’t really speak much about what we wanted to achieve at the start of the year. We just knew we wanted to build something special together.”