Grand Final glory beckons for Leeds Rhinos as England wheelchair rugby league ace predicts classic

Rhinos won all their eight fixtures in the regular season to secure a fifth successive Betfred Wheelchair Super League leaders’ shield and then saw off Wigan Warriors - who beat them in last year’s decider - at the semi-final stage. Their lone defeat this year was to Wigan in the last four of the Challenge Cup, but they have been involved in a series of tight games throughout the campaign.

Rhinos have won only two of their previous seven Grand Finals before and during the sport’s Super League era and Halifax boast a history of rising to the big occasion. Panthers’ 2022 title success fourth time they had defeated Rhinos in a Grand Final and their fifth championship overall.

Though Leeds finished seven points ahead of second-placed Halifax on the table, both meetings this season have been close, finishing 64-52 and 56-54. Panthers’ Wayne Boardman as this week pipped Leeds boss James Simpson to the competition’s coach of the year award and Rob Hawkins was named best young player, despite competition from Rhinos’ Josh Butler. Butler won the main Wheels of Steel prize.

All that means Rhinos will be taking nothing for granted in the Sky-televised final at Hull’s Allam Sports Centre. “They are a good side,” Halliwell warned. “It should be up there as one of the best Grand Finals and if we win, it’ll be one of the best victories I’ve had.”

Success would cap what Halliwell described as “a good season, especially in the league”. He noted: “We’ve won the league leaders for a record fifth year straight and we’ve been turning up the gears and finding different ways to win.

“In previous years we’ve had bigger winning margins, but this year we’ve had to find ways to win and win games at the death. Chasing back to win is something we’ve never really done before, but I think on three occasions this year we’ve been chasing a result and won in the last minute or the last play of the game. We’ve found different ways to win and I think that gives us something different, probably a different edge, we can use in big games, so I think we are in good stead.”

Rhinos are taking a new approach to this season’s showpiece. “We’ve been here before, in Grand Finals and probably been a bit over-hyped, over-excited and over-emotional,” Halliwell said. “This time we’re quite calm, it is just another game.”

Rhinos were favourites 12 months ago, but underperformed on the day and Halliwell added: “We haven’t really thought about last year. We’ve just been focusing on this one.

“Each Grand Final is special and we will take experience from that. We will have learned some lessons, but it hasn’t been a talking point in camp or at training sessions.

“We’ll be thinking about ‘this didn’t work last time, so we’ll do this [on Sunday]’, but that’s probably more in the preparation and build up on the day itself. Normally Grand Finals are pretty full-on and you can’t get into a game day flow, but we all know what we need to do as soon as we arrive. We have definitely learned from previous mistakes and I’d say we are ready to go.”