Sam joins the Raiders 100-club

Hewick, who has been with the club for five seasons, was told he would not be a first-team player when he first arrived at the club.

But, speaking after his 100th appearance in the National League, when he also marked the appearance with a try, the 24-year-old said: “It feels pretty good, especially as the first season I turned up here, I got told I wouldn’t play in the first team, so it’s quite nice and I feel there’s a point proven there.”

Hewick follows Pete Cleveland, who reached his milestone earlier this year, into the Raiders National League 100 appearances club and a number of other players have also reached the landmark.

Hewick said: “We all kind of came through together and started at a similar time. In my first season, myself and Pete Cleveland played in the second team together and then we’ve come through into the first team at the same time as well.”

On his highlights during his time with Raiders, he said: “It has to be promotion last year away to Stourbridge. That was pretty nice and also the first win in National 1, away to Fylde, that was another highlight there.”

On the current season, Hewick said: “I’m loving it, it’s a real good standard of rugby to play at. You notice the difference between National 1 and National 2. There’s no easy games, every game is a tough game and the standard of rugby across the whole league from top to bottom is good.

“There’s been quite a few tight games, I think we’ve proved we can compete at this level more than comfortably. Our goal is to stay up this year and then push on from there really.

“We’re building, this win today (against Tynedale) is a good win, so we can build on this and go forward.”