Wigan's Brad O’Neill has won every major club honour and he’s still only 21.
Yet that hasn’t quenched his thirst for success - or desire to gain revenge over Hull KR in Saturday’s Challenge Cup semi-final showdown. The rangy hooker still has to pinch himself playing for his boyhood heroes, enjoying so much glory so early in his blossoming career.
He was part of their Cup-winning side in 2022, helped Wigan claim the League Leaders’ Shield and Grand Final last year and then featured as they downed NRL champions Penrith in February’s World Club Challenge.
O’Neill admitted: “I’m from Leigh but grew up as a Wigan supporter. I am living the dream. Exactly that. Watching them as a kid, playing for them is all I’ve wanted to do.
"Dreaming of these things [winning trophies] and then doing it, it is special. I enjoy every day, going to training and then playing. But I don’t take anything for granted.”
A rare setback was losing last year’s Cup semi-final against Rovers in golden point extra-time, denying him the chance to face hometown Leigh at Wembley. That defeat still stings for Matt Peet’s side, the early Super League leaders who bid to beat Rovers second time around in tomorrow's Doncaster shoot-out. O’Neill recalled: “It was a painful one, a very tough feeling.
"But it was also so tough knowing all the lads gave everything but we still came up short. It’s something we can learn from as a team, though, losing like that in that golden point. It obviously hit us all. But we didn't get beat after that and went on and won the Grand Final. It taught us valuable lessons.”
O’Neill has yet to play at Wembley - the 2022 Cup glory versus Huddersfield came at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium - so that's a box still to tick. But beating the title-chasing Robins will take some effort given they have their own ghosts to exorcise having lost last year’s epic decider against Leigh in golden point themselves.
O’Neill added: “KR have a lot of threats. Obviously, Mikey Lewis is up there, along with Tyrone May and Jez Litten.
“Niall Evalds has been playing pretty well, too, so they’ve got strike all over. But we want to keep building more: we want repeated success at Wigan. We’re striving for that.
"It starts by getting better every day at training, doing all the little one percent extras. It starts with Saturday’s semi-final.”