Peters planning glorious Wigan farewell

Young scrum-half has sights fixed on returning home to Australia with a Grand Final winner's ring

If everything goes according to plan at the JJB Stadium tomorrow night, Willie Peters will be making his last appearance there for Wigan. Victory over St Helens will take them directly into the Grand Final at Old Trafford in two weeks' time - a fitting climax to two eventful years in Britain for the young Australian.

If everything goes according to plan at the JJB Stadium tomorrow night, Willie Peters will be making his last appearance there for Wigan. Victory over St Helens will take them directly into the Grand Final at Old Trafford in two weeks' time - a fitting climax to two eventful years in Britain for the young Australian.

Just 19 when he came to England from South Sydney to play for the ill-fated Gateshead Thunder, Peters believes that he will go home having matured much more, both as a person and as a player.

There are plenty at Wigan who wish he was not going at all. But, mid-way through his two-year contract, he is being replaced as the side's scrum-half next year by another import from Australia, the Queensland and Papua New Guinea captain, Adrian Lam.

There are Wigan players who will say quietly - and strictly off the record - that they would rather keep Peters than the vastly experienced Lam, but the die is cast. He is going back to Sydney to play for St George-Illawarra, but did he jump or was he pushed? Definitely not the latter, says Peters. "It was my choice. [The Wigan chairman] Maurice Lindsay made it clear that they wanted to keep me. The club hasn't pushed me out in any way."

Still, given a choice between competing with an established international for the scrum-half spot at Wigan - with another Test player, in Matthew Johns, cutting off the option of switching to stand-off - and relaunching his career in Australia, Peters has made his decision.

His main motivation is to become what Lam and Johns are already - a full international. "An Australian cap - that's my main goal. I'm a long way off that. I have to go back and establish myself at home as a consistent first-grader and take it from there."

Few who have watched him for Wigan this season would write off his chances of success. Already recruited from Gateshead before they folded, on the basis of his outstanding form in their inaugural season, Peters has formed a smooth link with the Wigan captain, Andy Farrell, who has been forced by injuries in the squad to play most of the season at stand-off.

"I've learned so much playing with Andy," he says, but Farrell has enjoyed it as well, Peters' willingness to boss the show on one side of the ruck giving him much more freedom to run and create.

Peters has also benefited from the confidence invested in him by Frank Endacott, the new coach who arrived at Wigan at the same time as him. "Frank gives me confidence in the way I play the game," he says. "Take them on, he tells me, don't be shy. That helps a half-back, but a coach telling you what to do - especially if he's just telling you to move the ball - doesn't help at all. You have to be allowed to go with your instincts.

"I like to organise the players outside me, but I like to run the ball as well. Frank has given me the freedom to do it as I see it."

The reward for that has been a series of performances which have, if anything, improved since it was confirmed that Peters was going home.

"I said to myself when I signed for St George-Illawarra that I didn't want to go out playing bad. I know people would say it was because I didn't care any more, which isn't the case at all."

If anyone needed convincing of that, then Peters' performance against St Helens two weeks ago in the dry-run for tomorrow's play-off show-down was compelling evidence. He played over the top of Saints' current Great Britain incumbent, Sean Long, in a way that no other half-back has done this season. His distribution, his kicking game, his sniping runs were all top-class as Wigan swept their rivals aside.

He is cautious, however, about assuming too much from that about the likely balance of power, individually or collectively, this time. "Sean is a terrific half-back, but our pack was going forward all night and his was on the back foot from the start. "That makes it very difficult for a scrum-half, but he still managed to make a couple of breaks. He's a great player."

It would be asking a lot to expect Peters to dominate so completely this time, but he has set himself the target of going out in the best possible style.

"I'd be lying if I said that there weren't aspects of life back home that I'll be glad to get back to, and I felt a bit of homesickness watching the Olympics," he admits. "But this is going to be a very, very hard place to leave as well.

"I've enjoyed England, but I've learned so much at Wigan. The set-up here is unbelievable and I think they're going to go from strength to strength.

"I'm not saying they will dominate like they used to, because the competition is so much stronger these days, but they'll always be there or thereabouts."

Peters himself has played a vital role in putting Wigan back on track. A top-class scrum-half is a prerequisite of an effective side and sober judges rate him as the best in that role at the club since Andy Gregory.

If Peters is right that the best is yet to come, he could fulfil his destiny by fighting his way past the competition of players like Andrew Johns and Brett Kimmorley to wear the green and gold in a couple of years' time.

If that is his long-term aim - and an ambitious one for any young player, however talented - his immediate goal is almost within his grasp.

"I've got two or three matches left with Wigan. I want to have blinders in all of them. When I knew I was going home, I decided I didn't want to go without that ring that they give you for winning the Grand Final."

That, you feel, would be the only appropriate finale for a player whose stay at the club has been brief - although no less brief than Australian legends like Brett Kenny, John Ferguson and Steve Ella in the 1980s - but will be warmly remembered.