Johnson is on course to be last man standing of famous five

THEY are a dwindling, now tiny group of players who, in Super League terms, have literally seen it all. An incredible band of just five, together they have amassed almost 1,500 Super League appearances and won every honour the club game has to offer.

Each is a Great Britain international, Challenge Cup victor and Grand Final winner (bar one, who is furiously working at hitting that last target before his time is called).

They have witnessed rugby league transform from a part-time winter sport to a full-time professional summer game, becoming one of the fastest, most physical in the world and now, 14 years on, each is ready to put his ageing body on the line once more.

Step forward Keith Senior, Sean Long, Terry Newton, Paul Johnson and Keiron Cunningham – the only players to have featured in every season of Super League rugby.

"It seems like a bloody eternity ago," recalls Senior, remembering March, 1996 and playing in the competition's opening fixture for Sheffield Eagles in Paris.

"But it proved a great occasion to be involved in and that was a great season personally for me.

"I got international selection at the end of it and it was the start of a really good career."

Three years on, he joined Leeds, where he has carved out a reputation as one of the competition's finest centres.

However, last season – when he turned 33 – was arguably his greatest as the Rhinos swept to a record-breaking third consecutive Grand Final success.

Explaining what has seen him and the rest survive so many seasons at the top, evergreen Senior says: "You can put it down to our durability.

"It's a tough contact sport and we started really at an early age so it's a difficult thing to have achieved. It shows how sturdy we've been still to be here now."

Two former Wigan greats from the early days of Super League stand out as his most difficult opponents.

"Jason Robinson for being so elusive while it was always weird playing against Vaiaga Tuigamala," admitted Senior, recalling his meetings with the formidable 18st former All Black winger.

"He was tough and strong but also one of the nicest blokes you'll ever meet. You'd try and put a massive shot on him but he'd get up and congratulate you afterwards."

Most years sees another of the esteemed group disappear, Paul Sculthorpe the last to fall when his career was ended prematurely by injury in 2008.

Cunningham – approaching his 34th birthday – has said he will definitely join his former Saints team-mate at the end of 2010 but who will be the last man standing?

Despite still being the best English centre around, Senior could hang up his boots in October but Long and Newton both have two-year deals ready to run at Hull FC and Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, respectively.

However, Senior offered: "It's got to be Jonno – he should be able to go on for another 10 years.

"He's only played about 100 games with all his injuries!"

Johnson, 31, is not as generous as Senior.

"I have probably got another five," he joked, having only secured his current 12-month deal with Wakefield after proving his fitness in pre-season training.

Versatile Johnson, who lifted the Super League title with Bradford in 2005, won the Challenge Cup with Warrington Wolves last year.

"I'd never got a chance to play at Wembley before as I was 18th man when we lost to Sheffield," he said, recalling Wigan's famous shock defeat against an Eagles side featuring a certain Keith Senior in 1998.

"I debuted for Wigan against Workington in the '95 centenary season. I'd just left school and at 16 became the youngest player to play for them. I don't think that will happen again.

"I came on at stand-off and shifted Shaun Edwards to scrum-half. One week I was watching them on TV and the next I was playing alongside them.

"It is a great achievement playing every Super League season and says a lot about us all.

"Of the early days, that first Grand Final with Wigan at Old Trafford in '98 was brilliant, playing against Tez (Newton). It's just got bigger and better at Old Trafford ever since."

Newton was on the losing side for Leeds that night and is the unfortunate sole member of the quintet never to have received a Grand Final winners' ring.

The luckless hooker lost three more finals after joining Johnson at their home-town Wigan and then joined him at champions Bradford only to see them fail to even reach Old Trafford during his four years with the Odsal club.

But, at 31, Newton remains as combative as ever and, ironically, has linked up with Johnson again as one of Wakefield's new signings, insisting he can end that fallow run despite being with a lesser light.

"The hunger is still there," he said, before explaining

how he became one of Super League's greatest hookers by pure chance.

"I was 16 when I first ran out for Leeds against Sheffield in '96.

"I signed as a prop but in the build-up to that match Mick Shaw got injured and Dean Bell said they'd run out of hookers.

"He asked me if I fancied it. I'd never played there before in my life but gave it a go on my debut and did a reasonable job."

It is not too surprising given his colourful partying past that now legendary scrum-half Long was not even aware he was on the exclusive list.

He came off the bench just three times with Wigan as a young understudy to Edwards in 1996, played a smattering more the following year before joining Saints in a seminal move via Widnes.

"I didn't know I had played with Wigan in Super League," admitted Long, who is currently preparing to start a new chapter at Hull FC.

"It was the following year, '97, with Saints that it really kicked off.

"I never thought it would happen so quick or I would achieve so much. I just wanted to get back into Super League after dropping down with Widnes.

"Summer rugby suited the way I played, though. It was faster and more open. It helped make my career."