Friday Interview - Lee Gilmour: Prepared to spoil Saints' farewell

He featured in the inaugural Super League Grand Final of 1998 helping Wigan defeat Leeds and has played in another six since but some of the details in between remain hazy, the bi-product of a long and often bruising career at the top of the game.

However, there are some images that will stick with the ex-Great Britain star forever and one which is indelibly linked is the sight of Keiron Cunningham plundering over for another short-range try at Knowsley Road.

Granted, during his six-year career at St Helens, he had seen the trademark score enough times to ensure it should be permanently engrained but, as he returns there as a Huddersfield player this evening, he is none the wiser as to how to prevent the legendary hooker profiting from his party trick.

"That's the sign of a great player," said Gilmour. "You know what he's going to do but still can't stop it.

"If we can keep Keiron and Saints away from our line tonight it makes the job a little easier.

"We'll be hoping to play as much football as we can down their end of the field, that's for sure."

Huddersfield bid to reach their first-ever Grand Final knowing victory would not only deny Saints a fifth successive appearance at Old Trafford but ruin the Merseysiders last-ever competitive match in 120 years of history at their Knowsley Road citadel.

It would, also, simultaneously pack Cunningham off into retirement on a losing note given the Saints captain is ending his sparkling 17-year career this season.

"Keiron's a mate but obviously, if I have my way, it's going to be a sad day for him," said Gilmour, who played in all of those Saints finals before being pushed out by salary cap constraints last winter. He's been a great player and he's a great bloke.

"It's a shame. I'd like to be able to cheer for him but I can't.

"I had six brilliant years at Saints and loved every minute of it – I've got some great friends that I'm playing against on Friday – but I'm a Huddersfield player now.

"I want to beat them. Simple as that.

"We've worked hard this year and we want to get to the Grand Final and win it."

The signing of former Bradford Bulls star Gilmour, 32, has been the sort of astute acquisition by coach Nathan Brown that has pushed Huddersfield into contention for honours this season.

His experience, guile and versatility – Gilmour is currently playing centre again having spent much of his first year at the Galpharm at second-row – has made last year's Challenge Cup runners-up a far stronger prospect as Warrington found to their cost last week.

That surprise play-off win at the Halliwell Jones Stadium has put the 8-1 outsiders on the verge of Old Trafford and the man so knowledgeable of that field sees no reason why they cannot now complete the job.

"We've certainly got a good enough team, squad and coaching staff to compete and win a trophy," said Gilmour who, if Giants do prosper, will draw level with former Bulls and St Helens colleague Leon Pryce and another Odsal team-mate – Jamie Peacock – who have each played in a record eight Grand Finals.

"There's lots of others vying but as Nathan Brown has said this week, as long as you're in decent form and injury free you stand a good chance.

"We have both so we do."

Dewsbury-born Gilmour also featured in St Helens' Challenge Cup domination after earlier winning the trophy with Bradford in 2003 and losing it during Wigan's shock 1998 defeat against Sheffield.

His thirst for success has not been quenched though and the Yorkshireman added: "The fact that I'm getting older makes it even more so because when you're young you don't appreciate it.

"In '98 I played at the old Wembley and the Grand Final in my first season.

"Some great players have never done that but here I was, 20 years of age and playing in two massive finals and representing my country.

"It was absolutely ridiculous. Back then, I didn't appreciate it but I do now.

"I've got another year left on my contract and I'm not guaranteed to get to a final with the way the game is at the minute. This could be my last chance of getting to Old Trafford.

"You just don't know what's around the corner. If I do get there, I'll cherish it that little bit more."

Both Huddersfield and their opponents enter tonight on seven-game winning runs but Saints are clear favourites something which does not trouble the confident visitors. They are reading nothing into the fact they have not won at Knowsley Road since 1978 but more so that they have won at league leaders Wigan and joint-second Warrington in recent weeks.

Gilmour, hoping to become the first player to appear in Grand Finals with four different clubs, concedes he initially wanted to remain at Saints, where his last game was last season's Grand Final loss to Leeds.

"I would have stayed had it been right but they didn't offer me a contract in the end," he said.

"Originally it was going to be two years.

"Then it came down to one and then things happened like Kyle Eastmond getting an upgrade, Scotty Moore coming back from his year's loan at Giants and some of the other younger players who'd done well that season, so I was squeezed out altogether.

"But the great thing was that Huddersfield were my first choice. I knew a few of the players and (assistant coach) Paul Anderson and I heard good things about it and Nathan Brown.

"I talked to a few other clubs but this was where I wanted to be.

"The move has been justified because I've had a great time but to get to the Grand Final would make it that bit more special for me."