Captain Paul has tail up

Challenge Cup final: Rugby league's young ones are planning a Wembley coup. Dave Hadfield talks to new-age rivals

Robbie Paul who, at 20 years and three months, becomes Wembley's youngest-ever captain on Saturday, was not even sure he would be in his new coach's plans when Brian Smith arrived at the Bradford Bulls.

He watched a number of fellow New Zealanders weeded out - sometimes to be replaced by Australians - and wondered whether he might be next. "But then I thought, 'No, I won't be. I'm good enough to play in this team. I'm good enough to be one of the best players in the team. I can be one of the best players in the competition.'"

In fact, Smith was sold on Paul from the start. Unlike his predecessor, Peter Fox, who played him reluctantly and infrequently, he made it clear that Paul was central to his plans by making him scrum-half and, equally surprisingly at 19, captain.

"It had been frustrating the previous season. But I always had confidence in my ability - and I'm a fighter." A fighter from a proven stable, as well, with his older brother Henry established as one of the most exciting players in the league at Wigan.

A little like Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft, Henry has always insisted that his sibling is an even better player than him. This year, it has been possible to see what he means. Once settled back into the scrum-half role he had not played since school, Robbie has proved a thrillingly creative player, blessed with the family talent for improvisation.

One back-flipped pass in the semi-final victory over Leeds evoked an audible gasp for its audacity; it was ruled just forward, but that seemed a mere detail.

Henry, with whom Robbie used to sit up in the early hours in Auckland to watch Wembley finals, has given him a few words of advice based on his appearance there with Wigan last year.

"He says that when I walk out there it will be unlike anything I've ever experienced and that the best way to settle the nerves is to make sure I make an early run and an early tackle."

It is hard to imagine an effervescent character like Paul failing to be heavily involved from the outset, but he does not make a big issue out of being captain.

"With experienced players like Graeme Bradley, Jeremy Donougher and Bernard Dwyer out there, I'm not going to be telling them how to play the game," he says. "They know what to do. In fact, when there are tactical decisions to be made, we tend to work it out between us. I don't know whether any other club has ever done it quite like that, but it works for us."

Paul's greatest influence over his side springs from his ability to create something out of nothing, with that family trademark spin out of the tackle, or with a visionary pass to switch the direction of the attack.

There is one area of the captain's duties, however, where he boasts a record that would be hard to beat. "I'm an expert tosser of the coin," he says. "I've got about a 95 per cent success rate. Tails never fails for me."

Robbie was not just born with the full Paul cargo of talent, it seems, but born lucky as well.