Super League Grand Final 2015: Leeds Rhinos legends Kevin Sinfield and Jamie Peacock make exit in Wigan finale

Departure of club legands marks the end of an epoch for the Rhinos

Kevin Sinfield plays for Leeds Rhinos for the final time (Getty)

This evening, in their very different ways, two of the true greats of modern rugby league will walk away from the game.

With due respect to Kylie Leuluai, who has been an outstandingly consistent servant to Leeds and also retires after the Grand Final at Old Trafford, it is the departure of Kevin Sinfield and Jamie Peacock that marks the end of an epoch for the Rhinos.

Sinfield, the natural leader, arrived at Headingley as though on rails. He has been the cool, calculating brain behind all the club’s successes. Peacock has been more of a battered and bloodied warlord, defying the years and leading by painful example.

In any audit of Leeds’ history, Sinfield emerges as the club’s greatest captain. He has an effortless authority that will not be easily replaced. In close games, like this one is expected to be, he has the happy knack of making the key decisions that get his side over the finishing line.

Much of that stems from an ability to concentrate on the here and now, on the things he can and must control. He has rarely shown any sign of being affected on the pitch by emotion. That is something for after the job is done.

“That will be the time for reflection,” he says. “Not now. When I do sit down and think about it, I’ll remember the players I’ve played with.”

High on that list would be Peacock. A comparative late starter, he had so little confidence in his ability that when he was on the bus for his trial for Bradford he went past his stop rather than get off at Odsal. It is an episode he likes to return to when employed as a motivational speaker: evidence that you can change yourself, not only physically but deep within.

Peacock spent six successful seasons with the Bulls, but it is at Leeds that he has acquired another dimension, as the Mr Indestructible of the game.

Even at 37, he feels well capable of going around one more time. “I think I could do another year, not a problem. It’s not the playing, I just don’t want to put up with all the stuff that goes on between games,” he says of his decision to retire.

His brand of heart-on-the-sleeve commitment has dovetailed well with Sinfield’s more analytical approach. “It’s good to go out with Kev like this,” he says. “We’ve complemented each other well, in terms of style and personality.”

Jamie Peacock will play for Leeds Rhinos for the last time this evening (Getty)

The two are taking different pathways away from the club where they have achieved so much. Peacock is going to Hull KR as football manager, while Sinfield is having a late fling in rugby union with the Rhinos’ neighbours, Leeds Carnegie – something he says he has always fancied doing.

There is unfinished business, however. With the Challenge Cup and the League Leaders’ trophy safely stashed away, Leeds stand on the brink of a memorable treble to mark the two legends’ exit.

There is a case for rating their current back division as Leeds’ best ever, but they know they must match Wigan’s special brand of aggression if they are to win.

In Shaun Wane, Wigan have a coach so focused that he worked through the deaths of his father and a brother in recent years without taking time off. “It’s the way I am,” he says. “It could be my way of getting through things.”

Wane also came in for criticism last year, when dressing room footage seemed to some to show an excess of aggression. Then, in the Grand Final a year ago, there was the Ben Flower Affair, with Wigan’s Welsh prop sent off after two minutes for a horrible attack on St Helens’ Lance Hohaia.

Flower is fully rehabilitated now and his form, in a settled front row, has got better and better at the sharp end of the season. He has a role to play in finally drawing a line under the episode, but so, according to Wane, does the whole team. “As far as I’m concerned, last year was a moral victory,” the coach says. “I don’t think anyone would say that, if we’d had a full team on the pitch, we wouldn’t have won that match. We’ll have 13 on the field this time.”

Like Leeds, the Warriors have few selection dramas, although anyone who can leave Josh Charnley out of a squad of 17 is very well off indeed for wingers. Wane always said he would select by form and not by name. That means Dom Manfredi and Joe Burgess, playing his last match before moving to the Sydney Roosters.

It is also a fond farewell to one of the great entertainers of the game, Matty Bowen.