Super League Grand Final: Wigan's Matty Peet & Catalans' Steve McNamara look to create legacy

Matty Peet's Wigan side face Steve McNamara's Catalans Dragons in Saturday's Grand Final

They are two different coaches from very different backgrounds, but Catalans' Steve McNamara and Wigan's Matty Peet are each hoping to create a legacy.

One coach will lead their side to Grand Final glory this Saturday, but both have had an unimaginable impact on their respective clubs.

McNamara has turned a failing outfit into one of Super League's superpowers in the past few years.

While Peet has handled the pressure of being the unknown outsider, taking one of the game's most decorated clubs and leading them to a higher plain.

But both know that coaching reputations are only really forged out of inspiring sides to compete on often rainy October nights in Manchester.

For one a win in this Grand Final will be a night to remember and equally will make one or the other truly unforgettable.

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'From holiday hotspot to hardened winners'

In 2017 the Dragons were in crisis. Their life as Super League's only French side looked to be limited as they tumbled down the table.

They eventually found themselves in the maelstrom of a Million Pound Game with Leigh, and a fight for survival. Defeat would have meant relegation and a possible withdrawal from the English leagues.

They won that game and they stayed up. McNamara, who'd only been appointed as head coach weeks earlier, refused to celebrate the victory, but instead began planning for the future.

His first task was to change the culture at a club that had attained a reputation for being a rest home and holiday hotspot for Australian players looking for one last pay-off and an easy life, before they slipped gently into retirement.

Under McNamara's watch, the attitude and aptitude of imports took precedence over reputation and past deeds.

There has been a sea change in mentality at Catalans since McNamara took charge

It was a recruitment formula that gave instant results. A year after that stressful relegation battle, in 2018, McNamara's Catalans were lifting the Challenge Cup - the first non-English side to do so.

A masterstroke was the signing of Sam Tomkins in 2019, the perfect on-field talisman who personified McNamara's vision of turning a soft-centred club into hardened winners - where hard work lay at the foundations of success.

In 2021 Catalans finished top of the league ladder, lifting the League Leaders' Shield and made their first Grand Final, only to lose narrowly in a dramatic game against St Helens.

Now the aim is to go one step further and win the trophy, capping an eye-catching rise in McNamara's six years in charge.

McNamara's elevation to high-performing Super League coach is a traditional one. He was a champion player at club and international level. He earned his coaching acumen with stints of varying success as head coach with Bradford Bulls and England, and as an assistant in the pressure pot of the NRL at the Sydney Roosters and New Zealand Warriors.

'Victory would make Peet a Wigan great'

In the other dugout on Saturday will be Peet, whose rise to the top has been unprecedented in the modern game at such a big club.

He's the coach who came from nowhere and had many rugby league fans asking: "Matty Who?" when Wigan gave him the plum job before the start of last season.

Peet never played the game anywhere near senior level and, before being given the head coach role at one of the biggest and most famous clubs in the world, he'd never had the top job anywhere at senior level either.

He'd been a familiar face at Wigan for many years, with roles with the under-18s, under-20s and as head of youth performance at the club. In 2018, he briefly left to join rugby union side Sale in a high performance capacity.

But it wasn't too long before Peet was back with his hometown club as an assistant.

Even so it was a shock when Wigan announced that he would be the man to take over from Adrian Lam at the end of 2021.

Peet has been creative to get the best out of Man of Steel Bevan French

While McNamara took over a failing club that needed mending, the pressures on Peet were the polar opposite. He inherited a side that had only narrowly lost in the previous year's Grand Final and where the pressure is to win silverware. Every. Single. Year.

He's achieved that, overseeing a trophy lift in both years so far - a Challenge Cup win in 2022 and the League Leaders' Shield this year.

But it's Grand Final victory that would raise him into the pantheon of Wigan's great names.

His style off the field has won him plenty of admirers. He's gracious, controlled, open and thoughtful in his pre and post-match media duties.

But he's also proven himself to be an astute coach, instilling in Wigan a bloody-minded determination that has seen them concede fewer points than any other side in Super League this year.

And they're fun to watch as well.

Peet's been aided in his ambitions in attack by having some once-in-a-generation superstars, in the likes of Bevan French and Jai Field.

But he's been more than thoughtful in getting the best out of them, switching their positions until settling on what seems the perfect combination of French at stand-off, Field at full-back. That wouldn't have been obvious at the start of this year.

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