Grand Final Preview #2 - The Power of 'No'

No. It is one of the most powerful words in the English language. It has the ability to motivate and to drive you towards success. It also can have the opposite effect and crush dreams. A short two-letter word, with such a large impact. 

Many of the players of Salford and St Helens are used to being told no. On Saturday night, under the glare of the Old Trafford lights, we will find out what impact the ‘no’ has had on them all.

You may associate being told no with the lesser lights, but that is the not the case. We have already looked at the respective teams’ superstars (here, in case you missed it) and they are not immune from it.

Jackson Hastings, rejected by the NRL and came to England for his last chance. And how he has taken it. For St Helens, Jonny Lomax, a man whose career has been written off more times that anyone could care to imagine. Now both stand atop the English sport.

A lot of words have been written about the superstars; it is right to focus on the players whose hard work often goes unappreciated. Salford’s co-captains Lee Mossop and Mark Flanagan are not strangers from rejection.

Lee Mossop has spoken candidly in recent weeks about the problems he has had with his shoulder, undergoing numerous reconstructions. At one point, it looked as though his career would end prematurely. Mossop even suggested that there was a time that he actively considered giving up the sport of his own accord. Yet seemingly in the blink of an eye, he will lead his Salford side out at Old Trafford on Saturday night, as they stand on the precipice of glory.

For Mark Flanagan, the rejection is more personal. In October 2014, he was a Super League champion with St Helens. The most unlikely scrum half to win a Grand Final that you will ever see. Without wanting to put words in his mouth, he must have felt on top of the world at that point.

The next 12 months flashed by, and he was released from St Helens, deemed surplus to requirements. How fast sport can take you from a crowning glory to a crushing fall. Flanagan has rebuilt his career at Salford. He has stared relegation in the face twice, but he and Salford did not blink. He worked his way up to be a senior player and then co-captain. That ascent has taken him back to Old Trafford, with the chance to win another Super League title.

This is somewhere that the Mark Flanagan of late-2015, released from St Helens, and the Mark Flanagan of 2016, at one-point, seconds from relegation, could surely never have dreamed of getting back to.

It is true that the more obvious stories of triumph in the face of adversity come from Salford. But dig a little deeper and they exist at St Helens too.

They are all over the field. Alex Walmsley wasn’t even semi-professional in his early 20’s and is now considered one of the finest props in the game. Tommy Makinson has recovered from two serious leg injuries to become the Golden Boot winner.

But we want to focus on two players who not that long ago found themselves in similar positions at St Helens that Mark Flanagan experienced on 2015.

Kyle Amor and Theo Fages were both, perhaps surprisingly, dropped for St Helens play-off semi final against Warrington in 2018. This must have felt like a firm punch in the stomach.

It didn’t get better for Amor, being told at the start of pre-season by Justin Holbrook that his first team opportunities would be very limited in 2019. He could have forced a move to another club, one where his first team place would have been safer. He didn’t though. He stayed and fought for that spot.

Through his hard work, Amor forced his way into Justin Holbrook’s plans and has missed very few games in 2019. Kyle Amor would have been hard pressed to believe in November 2018, that the next 12 months would have seen him play in both major finals. He is now one win away from being a two-time champion.

Theo Fages hasn’t had it easy since his move from Salford to St Helens. He arrived at the club in 2016 to much optimism. However, he struggled to force his way into the squad and found opportunities limited with makeshift-stand off Jordan Turner preferred to him.

The St Helens fans wanted him in, singing (to the tune of Duran Duran’s ‘Rio’) “his name is Theo and he watches from the stands”. But whatever the fans saw in him, Keiron Cunningham did not.

Fages may have thought more opportunities would come along when new coach Justin Holbrook was appointed. That wasn’t the case either. Ben Barba’s arrival saw Jonny Lomax move to half back, accompanying Matty Smith. Even when Matty Smith fell out of favour in 2017, the vacant half back role was filled by academy product Danny Richardson and not 

Fages, who was consigned to the role of a bit-part, utility impact sub.

Fages may have felt at his lowest in that play-off semi-final, where he lost his place on the bench. It took until 2019, Fages’ fourth full season as a St Helens player to grab a regular starting place. He was preferred to Richardson at the start of the year, who had a disrupted pre-season with injury and hasn’t released his grip on the shirt since.

There are so many other tales that could be told, those contained in this blog are a mere snippet. Come Saturday night, as they walk out at Old Trafford, all of the players should have thoughts going through their head of all those times they were told no. And how they have proven those people wrong.

Some of these players will gaze down on the winner’s ring on their finger at 8PM on Saturday and those “no’s” will have suddenly turned to “no doubts”.