Warrington’s bid to make it fifth time lucky fuelled by 71 years of agony

It is a tale of two potential fairytale endings on Saturday evening with a unique twist. A startling statistic has spread across social media since last weekend’s Super League playoff semi-finals: of all the towns and cities across Europe with a population of more than 200,000, it is said that only two do not have a professional football team.

Those two settlements will be front and centre of the rugby league landscape, as Wakefield Trinity and Warrington Wolves go in pursuit of history at Old Trafford. Trinity were in the Championship only two years ago, and hunting a first major trophy since 1968.

But to ignore Warrington’s own journey to this point would be doing everyone associated with the town a disservice. The longest-running joke in rugby league among supporters is Warrington’s long, long wait for a league title – you have to go back to 1955 to find their last. Unlike Wakefield, in their maiden Grand Final, Warrington have been here before: four times.

Whereas Wakefield are fuelled by romance and the prospect of “doing a Leicester” as it has been dubbed, Warrington are motivated, and perhaps even angered, by being the butt of the joke for just a little bit too long now.

“It pisses me off,” says the Warrington-born hooker Danny Walker. “It’s always been part and parcel of playing for Warrington and it’s up to us to shut people up and stop that song being sung.”

Walker has been in the stands at Old Trafford on multiple occasions and seen Warrington lose Grand Finals so what the Wolves possess is a deep-rooted understanding of how painful it is to lose at Old Trafford. That could be the difference.

“I still live locally and, even this week, we’ve had people stopping us, telling us what it would mean to them,’” says Walker. “There’s people that have been going for 70 years and never seen it. We know what it means. You don’t have to worry about that.

“I’ve been stood on the Wembley pitch as a loser, watching another team win the Challenge Cup and I’ve been in the stands enough times at Old Trafford watching us lose. I’ve been to three of the four, including in 2018 just after I’d signed for the club. It’s an exciting week, but I know what it feels like to lose here.”

It is not just Warringtonians who possess that desire to bring the title to the town. George Williams won everything there was to win with Wigan and was ridiculed five years ago when he returned from the NRL and chose the Wolves. He insisted he could inspire the Super League title: in his final game for the Wolves before going back to Australia, he can make good on that promise.

“I’ve been there before and won it, but I’ve never wanted to win a game as much in my life,” he says. “I was bold enough to say it back then and I’ll stand on my word. The goal has never changed over the last five years. We’ve missed the mark at times, but now we’ve got this opportunity.”

This time last year there was an internal review at Warrington into Sam Burgess’s future as head coach, after the Wolves limped to an eighth-placed finish. He survived that and deserves immense credit for turning the fortunes of the Wire and perhaps his own coaching career around.

The parallels with his greatest moment as a player, helping South Sydney Rabbitohs win a first Premiership in 43 years against all the odds, are too tantalising to ignore as he gears up for his first Grand Final as a head coach. “It was one of the most appetising things about the job,’ he says. “I’d be lying if I wasn’t very interested in breaking the drought when I took the job.”

Burgess has leaned on his mentor, the legendary Australian coach Wayne Bennett, in the run-up to the final, but all year he has insisted the pressure of the past does not weigh heavy on his side. On Saturday we will find out if that is true.