St Helens bid for history and fourth successive Grand Final triumph

History comes in all shapes and sizes and, in a way, every side that lifts the Super League trophy writes their own slice. But on Saturday evening at Old Trafford, there is something slightly more significant on the line.

The world has changed immeasurably since the 2019 Super League season began. Britain is on its third prime minister and the planet has lived through a pandemic. St Helens, though, have remained constant. For over 1,000 days, the Super League title has belonged to one club and one club alone and on Saturday they bid to go where no club has gone in the modern era – and where only one club has gone since rugby league began in 1895.

Only the great, all-conquering Wigan side of the 1980s and 1990s won four consecutive league titles. Since Super League was founded in 1996 and the sport switched to summer, nobody has achieved that feat. If St Helens beat Leeds Rhinos in the Grand Final, they will become the second club to do it and, in the eyes of many, remove any doubt about whether they are the greatest team to play the game.

“I think they already can be placed in that bracket with the success they’ve had across the whole game,” their coach, Kristian Woolf – who led them to the past two titles – says. “But winning this weekend puts a bit of an exclamation mark on it for me and always takes away any doubt or any debate.” In this unprecedented four-year era of dominance, St Helens have won every domestic trophy on offer at least once.

St Helens Bennison; Makinson, Hurrell, Percival, Hopoate; Welsby, Lomax; Paasi, Roby, Lees, Mata’utia, Batchelor, Knowles. Interchange McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Wingfield, Lussick, Sironen.

Leeds Myler, Briscoe, Sutcliffe, Hardaker, Handley; Austin, Leeming; Oledzki, O’Connor, Prior,