Leeds Rhinos head coach James Simpson and Wigan Warriors star Adam Rigby look ahead to Sunday's Betfred Wheelchair Super League Grand Final at the National Basketball Centre in Manchester; watch the match live on Sky Sports Arena from 5pm (5.30pm kick-off)
Sunday 15 October 2023 17:34, UK
James Simpson has been in these big games for club and country many times before. The difference is this year, he will be on the sidelines as Leeds Rhinos aim to reclaim the Betfred Wheelchair Super League title they won two years ago.
Simpson brought the curtain down on a stellar 10-year playing career in the perfect manner last November by helping England reclaim the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup, and since then has been working as head coach of his former club Leeds Rhinos.
A Grand Final winner as a player in 2021, the 37-year-old has already overseen a Wheelchair Challenge Cup final appearance for Leeds this year and is now preparing for the Super League showpiece against Wigan Warriors on Sunday, live on Sky Sports (5.30pm kick-off).
It has been an adjustment for Simpson, yet he could not be enjoying the second chapter of his rugby league career more.
"It's been stressful - but I've loved it," Simpson said. "I was player-coach for two years and I loved playing, but I fell in love with the tactical side, the planning, the motivation, and just helping players come on and be better.
"One of the biggest learning curves for me was losing the Challenge Cup final. You don't learn when you're winning and I went away from that and had a really big reflection, and I learnt loads.
"That really impacted the rest of the year and that's what got us the League Leaders, that's what got us to the final, but I learnt a lot from that loss and I'm still learning.
"I'm attacking coaching like I attacked playing, and I'm trying to embrace it as much as I can and learn as much as I can as well."
Another player who has been here before and was part of last year's World Cup-winning squad is on the opposing team in Wigan's Adam Rigby, who featured against Simpson as a player in 2021 when the Rhinos beat Leyland Warriors - now merged with Wigan - 52-36 in that year's Grand Final.
While Leeds won the League Leaders' Shield by finishing top of the table at the end of the regular season and then reached the Grand Final with a 54-44 play-off win over the team which beat then in last year's decider, Halifax Panthers, Wigan have had to do things the hard way.
After finishing third in the regular season, the Warriors then faced the onerous prospect of travelling a London Roosters team overseen by Wheelchair Super League coach of the year and England boss Tom Coyd and containing Wheels of Steel winner Lewis Roberts in the semi-finals.
Nevertheless, they emerged 43-34 victors, and Rigby knows it will be down to the likes of him and fellow World Cup winner Dec Roberts to be a calming influence on the younger and less-experienced members of the squad at the National Basketball Centre.
"It's massive," Rigby said. "It's not like the running game where you turn up to the stadium and it's the same where you've got the music and the fans every week.
"Most of our league games we get a few people in and the most we've had at a Wigan game is 200-300. But the sense of occasion we're going to have on the night with the music, the lighting and a packed-out arena, it's going to completely change the game around.
"The big focus is to get there, absorb it, look around and enjoy the occasion, but when the whistle goes it's five of us facing five other people and we've got to concentrate on our gameplan."
This year's wheelchair Grand Final comes a day after the running game's equivalent at Old Trafford and both will feature Wigan trying to win the respective Super League titles.
Warriors head coach Matt Peet took time out from preparing his side for their showdown with Catalans Dragons on Saturday evening to speak to the club's wheelchair squad and is impressed by what they have achieved so far in 2023.
"It's really, really good," Peet said. "It was the performance of the year for them last week [against the Roosters] after finishing third in the table.
"I had the privilege of speaking to them Wednesday night and I let them know how proud everyone at the club is of them.
"They're inspiring people throughout the club and how to approach this game, they don't need to do any different from what they normally do and make sure they enjoy the occasion."
Leeds have plenty of World Cup experience of their own in Tom Halliwell and Nathan Collins plus the Wheelchair Super League's young player of the year Josh Butler, and Simpson is hoping a different approach from him on the back of that Challenge Cup final defeat to Catalans in August will pay off.
"You've got to find your way of doing things and when we came to the Challenge Cup final, having played with these players and knowing them really well, I amped it up too much and made it too much of a spectacle," Simpson said.
"We're very laid back and very relaxed, and we've got people like Nathan Collins and Josh Butler who've been playing 10 or 12 years, and they need to do their thing without the extra pressure. We've dialled that back a lot.
"We've lost our last two big finals, so just getting back on that big stage and winning, showing people we can still do it, and now I've retired doing it without me on the field, is the big driver.
"This club is so good to us that you want to repay them by doing them proud and represent what that badge means. We don't let that pressure get to us, we relish that and enjoy it."
Watch this year's Betfred Wheelchair Super League Grand Final between Leeds Rhinos and Wigan Warriors live on Sky Sports Arena from 5pm on Sunday, October 15 (5.30pm kick-off). Also stream with NOW.
