Super League Grand Final 2015 match report: Josh Walters secures treble for Leeds Rhinos to give legends perfect send-off

Leed Rhinos 22 Wigan Warriors 20

Josh Walters goes over for the match-winning try (Getty Images)

A try out of the blue from their least experienced player, Josh Walters, gave Leeds victory in a gripping Grand Final to complete a treble of the domestic trophies.

Wigan had fought their way back in the second half at a packed Old Trafford, only to be denied when the 20-year-old back-rower, a late inclusion with just a handful of games to his credit, leapt to claim the ball, the try and the match.

It was a fitting end to a pulsating match – one that left Wigan broken-hearted for a second season in succession. It was a victorious departure for Leeds’ three musketeers, Kevin Sinfield, Jamie Peacock and Kylie Leuluai, but a hollow one for the equally deserving Matty Bowen, who thought he might have won it for Wigan with a brilliant second-half try. “I can’t say how proud I am of the way we won the treble to give them a fairytale finish,” said the Rhinos’ coach, Brian McDermott, of his trio of stalwarts.

For the first Grand Final bringing these teams together since the inaugural event in 1998, Wigan named their expected line-up. That meant no place in the back-line for the England winger Josh Charnley.

Leeds pursued their first-ever victory over Wigan in a major final with a three-quarter division many rate as the best they have ever put on to the field, but with their most creative forward, Adam Cuthbertson, on the bench.

To describe the first few minutes as eventful would be underplaying them wildly. Leeds found it ominously easy to make ground from their first couple of sets, but it was Wigan who took a third-minute lead thanks to Liam Farrell’s piercing run and Joe Burgess’s arrival in support to take the scoring pass.

Back came the Rhinos almost immediately, with man of the match Danny McGuire timing his run perfectly on to the sort of little kick with which Sinfield has been providing him for the best part of a decade and a half.

The game then took a breath and settled into a pattern. Wigan had the edge in field position but Leeds looked marginally the more dangerous of the two sides.

Cuthbertson came into the game and knocked on with his first touch, but it was Leeds who took the lead again, albeit controversially

Kallum Watkins somehow kept Zak Hardaker’s high kick in play, the Rhinos pulled them every which way and finally got over through Joel Moon, even though McGuire looked suspiciously as though he had nudged the ball forward.

There was nothing wrong with their third, however. Cuthbertson off-loaded twice in the build-up, McGuire opened up the flank with a looping pass and Tom Briscoe and Watkins set up McGuire to score.

Wigan needed to score the first try of the second half and got it when Dom Manfredi stole Sean O’Loughlin’s high kick from Ryan Hall.

Not only that but on 46 minutes Bowen’s bumping, bouncing run took him past five defenders to give the Warriors the lead. Bowen added to it with a penalty, but then came Walters’ magic moment.

Wigan’s coach, Shaun Wane, described the dubious try – there was hint of a knock-on – as “one of those things” and found consolation in the youth of his squad. “Leeds are coming to the end of an era,” he said. “It hurts like hell, but we’ll be around for many years to come.”

Teams

Leeds: Hardaker; Briscoe, Watkins, Moon, Hall; Sinfield, McGuire; Peacock, Burrow, Garbutt, Delaney, Ablett, Singleton.

Replacements: Walters, Cuthbertson, Keinhorst, Leuluai

Wigan: Bowen; Manfredi, Bateman, Gildart, Burgess; Williams, Smith; Crosby, McIlorum, Flower, Farrell, Tomkins, O’Loughlin

Replacements: Patrick, Mossop, Clubb, Powell

Referee: Ben Thaler