Gareth Ellis - I feel for good friend Mark Flanagan - but Leeds Rhinos deserved Wembley win

THERE has been some talk about whether Saturday’s Challenge Cup final was a great game or not.

Some people who were actually there say it didn’t come across as a great one but the commentators must do a really good job as – watching on the TV – I actually thought it was a really good match.

Even in the second half when it did get a little bit scrappy there was still a real intensity about it and, personally, having been on that field, I know it is a very intense game.

You hang on every pass, you want to cry at every mistake or knock-on; you are very much in it. Leeds are my former team but I also had one of my favourite ever team-mates on the opposite side in Salford’s Mark Flanagan.

A couple of weeks ago he’d announced his retirement for the end of the season so I was really hoping he could add some silverware to his trophy cabinet.

With that in mind, I was living it as well. I heard Ian Watson, the Salford coach, saying afterwards that he didn’t think it was a particularly good game so obviously from the pitchside maybe it was different. That’s where maybe the lack of crowd comes into it; we got crowd noise on the box but, for those there, with some of those tries scored there would have been people on the seats and cheering.

That’s the bit I think I missed; all the little things that normally happen at Wembley. I thought if Mark Flanagan did get to lift the trophy, there’s real iconic moments in winning a Challenge Cup final – walking up the stairs, standing on the balcony – that he would not have experienced.

All the times you go as a kid and have flashbacks of what that was like for players lifting the Cup, you are the one in that moment you go up those stairs.

I do feel for some of those players that didn’t get that opportunity on Saturday but what those things are out of our control; we can’t do anything about that. Instead, Leeds can now say in a year of disruption, they are the only team so far who have some silverware.

They’ll take credit from that given where they were 18 months ago.

As Kevin Sinfield said afterwards, they’ve been in a tough place and copped a lot of criticism about where the club’s going. I suppose it was epitomised in Richie Myler. It was talked about him going to Toronto Wolfpack after Luke Gale’s signing but then there he is – having switched positions to full-back – getting all the plaudits and deservedly so by winning the Lance Todd Trophy.

There’s been a lot of good stories in a very strange year for the Challenge Cup.

When you go back to all the delays, the redrawing of the competition, the lower league sides all dropping out, it really has been a crazy year for it and that was shown in the game, it was frantic and fast-paced.

As for the Lance Todd award, I’m not sure I’d have gone with Richie. Me being me, I had my time in the backs but am well and truly a forward these days.

There was some absolutely monumental efforts in the middle and I think it’s always the case with the Lance Todd that people automatically go to the backs and particularly the halves. I thought Richie Myler had a big impact on the big moments with how he chimed into the line and did some really influential passes that led to tries.

But I thought some of the forwards on both teams were outstanding. Matt Prior was good for Leeds, Luke Yates was good for Salford and there was some real workmanlike performance. It’s not the flashy stuff they do but, for Leeds, with Prior and Ava Seumanufagai, the effort they put in allowed Myler to get on the end of those shift plays and it all goes a little unnoticed when it comes to man of the match.

It wasn’t to be for Mark (Flanagan). He was there with me for two years at Wests Tigers and I felt like his older brother .

He came the year after me and had some really good games for us. He was such a likeable fella in the group. We don’t see much of each other with him being the other side of the Pennines but have stayed pretty close.

He’s someone I hold dear when I talk about rugby and people I’ve met; that’s why I was disappointed he didn’t get that opportunity to lift the Cup.

But like I said to him after the game, it’s nice to win trophies and Challenge Cups but they don’t define you as a player and as a person. Otherwise he would have won five or six of them.

Unfortunately for him, Leeds were the best team on the day.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson