Jake Connor is Man of Steel in one of rugby league’s great redemption arcs

Jake Connor was crowned the 2025 Steve Prescott MBE Man of Steel on Tuesday at the annual Rugby League Awards Night, and the Leeds Rhinos half-back’s story has to be considered one of the modern game’s great redemption arcs.

In the week of the Betfred Super League Grand Final, in which treble-chasing Hull KR meet two-time defending champs Wigan Warriors at Old Trafford on Saturday, Connor was handed the greatest individual accolade in the sport after a stunning campaign with the Rhinos.

His was the headline coronation on a night which saw sensational Wigan second-rower Eva Hunter announced as the Woman of Steel and the London Roosters’ Joe Coyd was named the third winner of the Wheels of Steel for the best wheelchair player of the season.

Thirty-year-old Connor has lived something of maverick existence in the game of rugby league.

His first regular stint in a Super League side came with Hull FC, for whom he spent a lot of time in the centres as coach Lee Radford found it difficult to slot him into a team which had Jamie Shaul performing at full-back with Marc Sneyd and Albert Kelly running things from half-back.

When he did get starts, it was with an emphasis on his utility value. He was a centre, stand-off, scrum-half and full-back but never really just one of the four.

Regularly, he was left to come off the bench for his nuisance value as Radford struggled to get consistent performances out of his X-factor star and Connor couldn’t find a fixed role. The only constant about Jake was the feistiness that brought Hull fans to their feet and riled opposing supporters without fail.

Only after Radford left did Connor have a home. Brett Hodgson used him almost exclusively as a full-back, but that sometimes helped to expose some defensive vulnerabilities just as much as it gave him some stability with ball in hand.

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On returning to his first club, Huddersfield Giants, for the 2023 season he should have revelled. But instead it became another struggle for a regular shirt.

Again, he couldn’t make the half-back or full-back spot his own, and by early 2024 he was finding game-time difficult as Oliver Russell, Adam Clune and Tui Lolohea were seen as more reliable options by coach Ian Watson.

Connor’s time at the top of the sport seemed to be fading away until Leeds picked him up for 2025, but even then many in the game thought it would be an awkward match.

Instead, he has been an absolute revelation. An ever-present through to round 25 of the Super League season, Connor has made the scrum-half role his own at AMT Headingley.

It said a lot for his turnaround that his exclusion from an England get-together in the summer was met with widespread mockery. The best player in the league was being given short shrift by national coach Shaun Wane.

But regardless of whether he’s included for the Ashes in Monday’s squad announcement, Connor has proved in 2025 that he always did have what it took to be one of our finest exponents.

Alongside Brodie Croft, he has piloted the Rhinos’ return to the top table. They played at home in the play-offs for the first time in eight years as Brad Arthur nurtured Connor’s superstar qualities to devastating effect. They beat every other team in the top six during the regular season and were only eliminated from the Grand Final running by St Helens’ stunning post-hooter try in the first week of the play-offs.

And at the heart of that huge progress was Connor: the man who couldn’t hold down a shirt at Hull FC and regularly found even starts difficulty to come by at Huddersfield.

But at Leeds Rhinos he has discovered an environment in which he can thrive. And boy, has he thrived.

He is the 2025 Man of Steel, and while Saturday’s Grand Final may not feature the rejuvenated Connor, Monday’s Ashes squad announcement just attracted a much bigger spotlight.

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